It's a little known fact, but many of the people that frequent the Arlonet boards hack up hairballs and dine on Meow Mix. Ask the Wizard if you don't believe me! can you believe this shit?!?!?!

You mean ? .... even Peabody ?

Hey Dave...got a question for you...
would you send your "How to deal with a pacifist" post to Arlo?....to Ma?.....
to Abe?....to Sarah Lee?........i
I didn't think so...they value diversity of thought...and. they're adults!

and...to those who want to play high school "in group, out-group" games...
Here's your homework, for tonight...
Memorize this sentence.......
"people have, and are entitled to express,, opinions different than your own"
Now live with that....

C'mon back please, Zowie!

I don't believe this shit!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by Bumper on Oct 22, 2001 ---</FONT></center>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bumper:

I don't believe this shit!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by Bumper on Oct 22, 2001 ---</FONT></center><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's all I was asking! It's about time somebody answered the question!!! Can you believe this shit????

Bumper, I don't really know what you mean with the high school in/out group thing. Most of us do value diversity of thought, but that doesn't mean that anyone is going to think that all opinions are equal. I wish ZoWie'd come back, too, but not if he's gonna post opinions there just for people to admire. Could someone please explain why if one person disagrees with another, that's fine, but it doesn't work the other way around. Can you believe that shit?

I've disagreed with Dave loudly and publicly on all manner of things. He thinks he's right and I'm wrong and vice versa about things which are important to both of us and I don't know about Arlo, but he wouldn't have hestitated to send that thing he posted to me if he felt like it. It hasn't meant that we couldn't be good friends, but it also doesn't mean we have to pretend when we don't agree.

uh, yeah..what pat said. i've debated things with both dave and kim, because most of the time we're miles apart on issues. we've managed to do that many times and still remain friends. i don't think we've really ever changed opinions, but the debates were fun.

as far as the thing dave posted. i can't speak for arlo, but if dave sent it to arlo, i wouldn't be surprised if arlo saw the humor in it...he has a pretty good sense of humor. i mean, i don't think dave was really advocating punching people out...

bumper....you say; "people have, and are entitled to express,, opinions different than your own" Now live with that....

were you saying that to zowie, hoping he'd realize the foolishness of his apparent definition of 'debate'?

or were you addressing this comment to the so called high school "in group, out-group" contingency?

and exactly WHO would that be?

if we (as a group) have learned anything from the mongo/quinn debacle...maybe it should be to be more direct in our comments.

oh yeah..sorry larry....


can you believe this shit?

I do want to explain one thing, although it probably won't make anything better. When I said "opposition" I thought later it wasn't the best choice of words. I wasn't referring to ZoWie in particular, but trying to express how - this is where it doesn't get better - irritating a lot of the..now what do you call it..the loyal opposition, the dissent crowd, whatever...is seeming to a lot of other people. Lots of people including many who have been in sympathy with anti-establishment causes up to now. It still feels too much like business as usual, when it's just not usual. If ZoWie feels I'm stepping on his right to express himself, I do suggest he review his own posts. He hasn't really shown an ability to tolerate debate.

Bumper, I was going to explain a bunch of things to you, but frankly I'm tired of dealing with all this shit... I really didn't want a damn thing to do with these community forums in the first place, but since it is my site, it seems like I can't avoid it. So, unless someone can convince me why I should keep this home for the mentally insane open any longer, the community forums will close this Saturday afternoon.

The only other solution I see working is like it or not, just kicking out the people who drive us into this kind of shit and showing no mercy.

But to answer your question, yes I would send it to them. I mean I posted it here, why not?

Wasn't it Dave that allowed Zowie to post his thoughts and opinions and impose his views and ideas whether it be political, social, economic, extremist, etc. upon everybody here whether they wanted to read his posts or not ? I feel Zowie took advantage of a good thing and used these boards as his platform to preach from his bully pulpit as long as everyone agreed with him and no one crossed him. I say that because he never seemed to welcome or respect the other person's response to his statements, ONLY if they agreed with him. Debate is fun, but you can take the fun away if you can't play without such an obstinate attitude. You don't have to agree, but when you come back at the person with, WRONG!, WRONG!, WRONG AGAIN! and start reaching in the bag for the middle finger meanie icon and typing F this and F that, then I can't accept the way he's tried to rewrite the code of conduct and making up his own selfish rules for debate.

Perhaps some of us who have been around a while should have realized it by now, but the idea of debating a topic evidently means very different things to different (some of them VERY different) people around here. So I am going to propose a simple solution here.

You may or may not have noticed I changed my title to a number. Originally, I figured we could all just change our titles to reflect how we handle discussion and political debate, but I realized the title field wasn't long enough to handle that. So I propose a simple table, with a number for each possible...let's call it a "frame of reference" that each person on here can associate with him- or herself.

You may also notice that I didn't start with 1 in this numbering scheme. Though it will be harder to remember, I decided we should simply assign random numbers to these "frames of reference." Wouldn't want anyone to take offense because they obviously aren't one of the favored group since the number of the frame of reference they are using is, say, 13, instead of 1. Hopefully, by assigning random numbers, no preferences will be shown.

Now I know this all sounds a bit complicated, but it is really quite simple. I'm now going to give a list consisting of a number followed by a phrase. This phrase will describe how the person choosing the phrase wants others to relate to him or her.

For example, if my number were '2', and in the list, '2' meant "F off," then, regardless of what I post on here, I would expect anyone answering me to simply tell me to F off.

Simple enough, right?

So here we go:

8525: I can handle mature debate, even if you manage to disagree with me. Please hold a normal discussion.

31: I can handle a mature debate, as long as you don't attack me - and by the way, I see any disagreement other than "Nuh-uh, I feel more that way than you do! Do not! Do so! Do not! Do so, and we need to kill all the republicans!!" as a personal attack.

12 2/3: I like a good debate, as long as I win. Please make your arguments weak and tissue-thin so I can easily stomp through them and claim victory and show the world how wonderfully righteous I am.

18003366887(1-800-efn-nuts): I am hanging over the edge and could blow at any second. You should really not only agree with me, but grovel at my feet and thank me profusely for making you see the light and how worthless a worm you really were for holding such perverse, offensive opinions.

-25: Respond however you want, because regardless of whatever opinion you have, I'm going to hold the opposite one.

463 44/100: I'm beginning to think the whole place is made up of a bunch of f'n fruitcakes. Please say something to convince me there is some small amount of sanity left somewhere out there.

123321: Birds will sing, and dogs will bark. Midnight, however, will reveal all.

12: WWAS (What Would ARLO say?)

3.14 F-off!!@#!@#!@$!@#$%#$&&W#$%$#@~

I hope this will alleviate some of the confusion for all of us.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Kim on Oct 22, 2001 ---</FONT></center>

Levi, Levi, Levi!!!!!!!!!!

How can I thank you?

You read my mind and divined my number before I could even finish my post!

"There are no throw away people." Ma

i for one will miss you guys..each and every one of you.

it was a free for all...meaning it was free for all...it had a good run, and i made a lot of fine friends.

if the above reasons aren't enough to keep it open..then so be it.

namaste'

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul. Simone Weil