Yes, I'm back, but what I was going to say is back on the original subject.
This morning walking through the Wal-Mart supercenter, I think I hit on something.
A lot of the problems here on this forum have come from things getting away from being about the subject and being about the person. Even if they are still on the subject, it gets personal, thus some people feel offended or attacked, and no way can anyone tell you something doesn't bother you when it does! One of my least favorite lines here is "no one attacked you." Okay, so that means you can say whatever you want, and people are stupid for taking offense? If someone feels attacked, it probably was an attack. I think veiled and subtle attacks are the worst, diguised to look like a normal post but the person who posted it knows damn well what they meant, and the person it's intended for knows, 'gets it' and is put out, yet since it's not obvious it's very easy for someone to go 'no one attacked you' and have 13 other people jump on the bandwagon saying, he's such a nice guy, he didn't do it, when he knows damn well he did. It's frustrating. The bottom line is, if I'm offended, I'm offended. If Melon is offended, he's offended, and same for everyone. It's not up to anyone else to tell us how to feel. I'm not saying people should be censored, but I am saying respect someone's right to feel offended!
It's become a negative thing that we know each other so well. Someone recently posted, we don't know you, we know your posts. That's the thing! Once people see you as posting in a certain direction on certain topics, you become labeled by them, and they judge all your future posts by it. In a way, it's the same thing as prejudice. Like the person who said to me, "I did that to see if you'd bite and you did." In that way, when people use your own self, or what they assume to be your own self against you, it becomes an attack, it becomes less about the subject matter (it's a good way to change the subject!) and more about the person and their posting habits, and that's where the trouble starts and we get off track. Most people do this, even I have done it when I bring up hypocrisy sometimes. I think, well, if they believe this about that, how could they possibly feel this way about this? It has to be a double standard! But I guess the people on TV shows like Crossfire do this, they know the other person's position and use it against them too.
But I just wanted to say, I think this is the problem when threads go sour. The only thing I can say is, either don't post here (which I am trying in vain to get the willpower to do) or if you feel someone has gone too far, report it to a mod, that way it's not the mod's fault if they have to speak to someone and they can't get accused of picking on anyone or taking sides. Does that make any sense?