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re: one more stupid lie I just noticed
azstrummer — (archived)

Daniel, if you read my first response I made it clear that I wasn't sure I had read all of the posts. I was responding more or less to just what I'd stumbled across. My access to this board is often hit and miss from work as I can find time to read and respond between tasks.

I never saw Mary Anne's reference to "kosher swine" but, knowing her as I do from her posts and emails, my hunch would be a remark like that would only come as a sarcastic retort to something someone said that pushed her over the edge and she felt the need to respond in kind. Her responses to you seem to indicate that very tactic was her goal. Obviously calling someone Jewish a "kosher swine" would be a nasty slur but I think everyone on here knows Mary Anne would never put out a such a slur without trying to make some deeper point.

While that tactic of giving one a taste of their own medicine is a pretty ineffective debating technique I can understand its use in feeling a sense of justice or stress relief. I certainly fell into that trap.

My outrage came from the impression that you were labeling people as anti-Semetic. I despise that term and the whole ideal and my post was intended to show my disgust at its use. The term certainly had its validity during WWII within Nazi Germany but it's been so distorted since then I feel it's often used to disguise personal responsibility of one's actions and the response others have to them. To me, reverse discrimination is as evil or more evil than simple bigotry. I see it daily in an area of the country that's heavily Hispanic. I've seen it in my job with black coworkers that, when taken to task for grievious missteps, began playing the race card. I do however, understand that in moments of stress, members of minorities faced with the challenges their groups endure, might be tempted to play their ace in the hole. If I feel they are impugning someone I respect by going to that tactic though, I will jump into the fight.

If I misread everyone's intentions in this fight then I regret getting into it. My gut feeling is now that it probably could've been diffused early if any of the parties had shown a bit of humility and a sense of humor.

Art

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