look again I'll say - if someone wants to come on the board and says: Look, this and that because here's the evidence or here's the constructed argument etc - then fine... you CAN have a hot discussion WITH legitamate points being raised, evidence, examples etc... all I'm saying is lets less-it with the wind-ups... Loopy made some dumb remarks about ireland in another thread for example... well they weren't reasonably constructed arguments, it was just stuff that 'could' be inflamatory to someone reading the forum.... that's all I'm saying.
debate is ok, who the hell is saying otherwise?
But OBVIOUSLY if someone appears posting words that (in a nutshell) "the irish are pathetic if they get pissed off over some skirmish that happend a few hundred years ago" - that is obviously a stupid statement with no basis in reality or history..
that's what I mean - But IF loopy wants to come and say... "Blah blah, yes, sure what happened was shitty, BUT..." - and make a reasonable proposition about the present situation, then fine...
It's just the dumb inflammatory stuff which might offend readers.... y'know there is already some irish/celtic readers on this site, never mind those people we never see who read/lurk so have some consideration - no-one would be so crass to appear here saying the haulocaust was 'overblown' and jewish people are just whining and bitter overall as a people...
why should we accept the same type of sentiment regarding any other people?
I ALSO dont like the suggestion (which is more stereotyping) that anyone who suggests that historicaly there was a wrongdoing or NOW there is wrongdoing ALSO is 'bitter and hateful' and wants to kill people or supports the killing of innocent people today - that's rubbish, but at the same time you'd be insulting those people to try to 'rubbish' an aspect of their collective history.
I used the example about the holocaust because it is quite inflamatory & rubs home the point I'm making... people react to that...They find a comparision drawn between that example and their statements is tasteless, but why?... it's the same thing for the irish or the africans... and if it comes to that, so it was for everyone, cos we all were on the receiving end at some point.
So, to repeat again.. IF someone here thinks differently, fine, bring some cohesive arguement to refute that or to prove your point, something tangible. But you cant just blast in with some crass generalisations and not expect that to be taken as insulting to some people.
That's all I'm saying - trying to be reasonable.
We're not children here, surely we can be a bit intelligent? - why?
I tell you why exactly - I was at Sonic State one day and there was a big 'hip-hop' discussion thread.... inside the thread it had descended into a row - a bunch of young dumb US white boys were trying to persuade the rest of the group that 'black' people were 'whining about the past', this group within the thread was suggesting there was no slavery issues in the past, and it was that sort of vibe, and it descended into this pathetic rubbish of cliche's and stereotyping...
I just was put right off the site, I thought, "Well that i dont want to converse with people who think like that"
and I've never been back. It didn't matter to me that these people were a minority in the thread, it just was unhappy to rewad and brought home to me each time that the world is still full of dangerous ill-informed right-wing boys who will grow to be potentialy dangerous right-wing men... so i dont care if it was justa a few guys, i dont want to mix with that vibe.
Y'know, it puts people off, it insults people. i dont want that for the site here is all I'm saying.
People dont think if it doesnt effect them... they see it as some game of intellectual bantering & pure theory.
But mebbe their kids dont come hom in tears cos at school the teacher said: "I know what 'you people' are like", when disciplining some black kids in the class...
y'know that is TODAY, IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM for s sake... or mebbe your wife/GF doesn't get assaulted in public, on a bus at the end of the street she lives in by some old nazi man, or your kid doesnt come home in a state cos he was pinned face-first into a brick wall in broad daylight in front of everyone on his local hight street where everyone knows him at the age of 11 (yes ELEVEN!!) by 3 fully grown adult policemen etc etc - or your kid comes home in tears cos he saw a stabbing at school during a fight between 4 kids over some out of school issue, and then shaken already he turns on the Tv and see's the London news report: "a gang of 50 black youths...blah blah, stabbing... blah blah" - which was not what he saw with his own eyes.
so dont tell me this shit is gone away. Being sensitive to that would be good as a starter mebbe. But that sort of crass denial that these events happen, and the painting of people who claim they do as somehow 'bitter and twisted' is right out of order.