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What makes you think you have the market cornered on ideas, thoughts, and words? What makes you think the person on the other side of the argument doesn't feel the same way you do about turning hearts?

TomK is right, you're all a bunch of drama queens.

I ain't no queen......

Larry

Where is your sensitivity? I can't believe you used a frog in this thread.

I am sure you didn't mean anything by it though.

lb

I didn't mean you. :p

Benedict,

You disappoint me. Though I respect your decision, there is no other way to say this. If, you are passionate about your convictions, as I believe you are, you would not leave but would stand your ground.

I can't help but think that even if you don't like what others say, or the insults which I agree are all too frequent, it is always enlightening to know what other people are thinking. You get that on this forum, warts and all.

I do hope that you will reconsider. I will very much miss your presence if you don't.

I'm with Benedict on this. The exchange of differing points of view is great, in theroy, but the constant barrage of insults and nastiness detracts so completely from the positive flow of ideas that it's easy to just throw up one's hands and say, "why bother?" Who needs the abuse?

B. wasn't always the innocent victim. In the "Evil" thread, I gave a sincere answer to the question. B. immediately called me a hijacker because he disagreed with my belief.

very well said.

Once again we hear about how this is a place where only conservatives are welcome and another liberal voice is felled. Liberals are outnumbered and dissent is not tolerated. Of course this is unfounded. Look at the regular Coffee Room crowd, where do you go after Jolly, Larry, and gryphon? I don't think JBryan identifies with the hardcore right wing. And KlavierBauer espouses as many liberal points of view as he does conservative, and eloquently states his positions and reasons for both.

On the other hand, it seems to me the "outnumbered" liberal voices consist of pique and John Andrew and Ariel and bcarey and kathyk and Nina and thammer and Renauda and Lazy Pianist and benedict and pdolce and Steve (the baseball guy) and Bernard and...just to name a few. And I didn"t even mention Shantinik. He's in his own world. So your statements about how this is only a conservative forum won't hold water.

It seems to me that you're the ones who can't stand dissent. You're all one-sided.

When someone disagrees with pique, it is "them" who can't see that she is correct, that she only wants what is right, that they won't turn their hearts to "her" point of view.

Benedict said he was offended by some remarks made here. But he doesn't see that maybe "we're" offended when he equates the United States with Nazi Germany as he has openly done here. Or the fact that he condemns the "culture of American violence" and the fact that firearms ownership is a protected right in the US. France has a 66% higher crime rate than the United States. (6,941/100,000 France as opposed to 4,160/100,000 US if you're interested), yet it is the US that is condemned. He pronounces judgment against perceived anti-Semitism here, but he sits among a very real and much more pervasive anti-Semitism that is present in Europe in general and France in particular. Perhaps his time would be better spent working against the real evils in the world instead of the imagined ones here.

No, look at the many previous comments from some here concerning the right or Christianity and you'll see “insults and nastiness” as well. There's no need to go into a detailed litany of people like benedict did. Just because we disagree with someone on a topic or two doesn't mean we don't like them. There's nothing better I'd like than to have a good steak dinner with kathyk or Ariel or bcarey, swap stories over a bottle or two of wine, talk about our families and music. Maybe even about politics or religion. But because we have different opinions doesn't mean we aren't or can't be friends. After a rough start, I think Ariel realizes this, and I would hope that kathyk and bcarey and everyone else does as well. As for myself I've said a few things that I've regretted later. Not necessarily the content of the post, but sometimes the tone. And I've even on occasion apologized for the way I might have said something, but not for my views. And I don't expect anyone else to, either, but I do expect them to be able to back up what they say, especially if they accuse someone else of something.

This from the person who was going to "kick butt"? How soon zealousness dies.

Here's the facts, Jack - one "side" is just as guilty as the other. All kinds of debating "tricks" are used, and sometimes manners are left outside the Coffee Room.

But the weapons are, and remain, equal.

If Benedict wants to pack it in, that is his business, for whatever reasons he may have. Yet nobody can say with a straight face, that he has not done his best on many occasions to attack, play victim, and attack again. He is too smart an individual not to know what he is doing.

And you know, this small microcosm may just mirror national life, and politics in some representative way. For years, folks with a Leftward bent have used all kinds of tactics to move the national debate in their favor. Many times, people with a more conservative bent were not inclined to fight on many of those levels, erroneously thinking reason would prevail above all.

I think that has changed over the last 20 years, and is continuing to change. Conservatives have adopted, and now use, many of the same tactics. A fight is a fight, no matter who starts it.

And discrimination, or bigotry, is the same, no matter from which side it emminates.

This "kick butt" thing keeps getting thrown back at me. I do vaguely recall having said something, in a joking manner, to the effect that more liberals were needed in the coffee room to kick some conservative butt or some such thing. Please, if someone can find what I said, I'd love to see it, and put it to bed (I'm a poet and I don't know it. . ..) permanently! My point sure as heck wasn't, come and heap your abuses on me boys!

I have always been respectful of others on this forum - not necessarily the idea, but certainly the person - and I expect the same in return. And I won't stand by complacently while others are being maligned. My inclination, like Benedict's, is to just walk away (too bad my name's not Renee).

This is not about too liberal, too conservative, too anything but too rude! There is no reason why there can't be exchanges - - good heated discussions - - without personal slams and insults.

DT,

1° I did not call you a hijacker. I said you hijacked the thread because it seemed on ethics more than religion. There was absolutely no intention of insulting you. I am sorry if you felt offended.

2° Calling someone a nazi is in an altogether different league. Especially when you know that person is a Jew and there has been suspiscion of antisemitic ghosts. Maybe you do not know what nazi means.

This said I understand that you would not like me.


I just have to put things straight so that people do not feel entitled to insult and harass because some you feel you have been done wrong to.

If you do not see the difference, then, you maybe not qualified to talk about evil.

Evil is hurting people deeply in an intentional way in their self-esteem, in their feelings or in their physical integrity.Nothing less. Nothing more.

It is so easy to abuse when the other person becomes an object and no more a subject (like in love thy neighbour). That is what evil is, DT, not seing the other as a person with feelings and a sense of self that is what can make life such a beautiful experience and real encounter such a necessary miracle.


I could have sent this personally through e-mail.
But it is important to me to leave this place with a sense of dignity.

This said, I apologize for sometimes being a bit intolerant to the way people in the US relate a lot of things to religion. It is not (yet ?) the custom in Europe.

benedict's second curtain call.

Not all Americans agree that the ammendment protects an individual's "right to bear arms" but believe that it refers to state militias. Also, your crime rate statistic is by itself meaningless unless you break it down into the types of crimes. Tell us what is the murder rate per 100,000 in France? Here in Canada it is 2/100,000 and I would be surprised if France were higher. In the US the rate is 10/100,000- the highest in the developed world. Wouldn't have anything to do with the proliferation of guns (and hand guns in particular) in the US?

No, I am not a liberal and I resent being referred to as one since it is so typically partisan. Rather, I would take your semi-automatic and automatic weapons away. Not very liberal of me is it?

1° I did not call you a hijacker. I said you hijacked the thread because it seemed on ethics more than religion. [/QUOTE]

The difference seems minute to me since my ethics are tied to my belief.

The harshest thing I said was that you weren't always an innocent victim. That probably applies to everyone of us here...even the neighbors we love. The lecture was superfluous. (N.B. the last sentence says nothing about you personally.)

Wasn't that recorded by Left Banke? a propos?

Yes, we are all aware that there are Americans who believe in this curious interpretation of the Second Amendment. Their problem is that there is no genuine constitutional scholarship to support it. Not in the plain meaning of the text, the contemporaneous writings of those who drafted and ratified it, nor the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court since it was written. The belief that the Second Amendment applies only to a militia and does not refer to an individual right is a fantasy.

Fully automatic weapons are very difficult to own legally in this country. However, if semi-automatic firearms are banned then I would expect to see a sharp increase in the availability of illegal fully automatic weapons on the black market.

So then you are telling me that Americans can't live without guns. I rest my case until the next excuse.

I'm not sure of your purpose for twisting my words out of conformity with their plain meaning but you may believe what you like. Whether or not Americans can "live without guns" is irrelevant to the issue of there being a constitutionally protected right to individual ownership.

I'm not twisting anything since you admit that some believe the constitution refers to armed state militias. You offered an excuse as to why semi-auto actions should not be banned or at least regulated along with full atuomatics.I think Shantinik is right when he stated last summer that the ammendment should also include WMD.