Rob, you were always one of those posters on the right that I felt were gentlemen. You weren't the only one, REB, FrankC, Tafkase, and several others also fit into that category. This did not mean you were pushovers or ran away from a challenge, it just meant you were not deliberate provocateurs and monopolizers of the dialogue, or relied on ridicule and patronizing condescension to win an argument. ("Win" an argument, the very concept is oxymoronic!).

Well, if it makes you feel any better, some of the lefties here are now also getting just as bad, I've caught myself doing it, too, so I don't claim innocence in any of this, either. But this problem was out of control when I first started posting here; some of my earliest posts (before I even realized there was a polarity here) were attacked simply because the FNG had the audacity to say the wrong thing (always political) and I feel it has been getting worse. In my opinion, it is all the direct result of a small minority of predominantly (but not exclusively) right wing posters. I've tried to call the board's attention to this, I've challenged people directly, I've suggested political moratoria, I've left in a huff and come back with guns blazing. Some of the most flagrant violators I've used their own weapons against them, quite successfully, I might add. In return, I've been treated either as if I were a hopeless pollyanna or an enemy of free speech.

Argument, even occasional bitter disagreement, is a part of any dialogue, but IN MY OPINION, there is a faction here that delights in conflict and it comes here primarily for that reason, and those who don't like to play rough are treated with contempt and derision and their ideas with ridicule. I'm as guilty as anyone else, I suppose, but when I come here, I come with the idea that I will not tolerate on line a tone of voice or discourtesy that I would refuse to put up with if it were face to face in a cafe or a bar. I also feel it is my obligation to speak to others in the same way. I'm not a violent man, but I've been spoken to here in ways that would have gotten me on my feet with fists clenched if they had happened in person. And I've deliberately spoken to others in a manner where I would have expected the same reaction.
You will forgive my subjectivity if I declare I am not the kind of man to do this without extreme provocation.

This is no longer just an occasional ocurrence, it happens almost every time I come here, or I see it happening with others. The fact that we are anonymous and physically isolated does not change the emotional impact and effect of words spoken in anger, or even in pretend anger, whatever the hell that means. I'm not a mind reader, I can only judge others by their text. And I can't switch mental gears by simply going to another board.

How many more have to leave? Tell me, are they all going because they can't get their way, that they're spoiled and want to dominate the discussion? Go over the list of those who have either given up, or cut back. They are very good people, and I think they're just tired of being forced to wallow in shit in order to feed the egos of a handful of strutting little bullies.

I'm sixty years old, maybe I'm just not used to the subtleties of this new form of communication, and maybe I lack the proper unemotional Anglo-Saxon personality to fit in, but I know I'm normally a reasonable and sociable man, and a peaceful one, and I know perfectly well when I'm deliberately being insulted.

And if anyone here I respect thinks I'm wrong, or making all this up, or causing all this through my own unreasonableness, I will leave. Just tell me.