You are off the hook this time, redfish, because Bill doesn't take objection to being called a wingnut.
HOWEVER, I have no intention of participating in a thread where there are a lot of personal attacks or fighting. (Please review the terms of use I posted at the thread head for details.) It is really hard to appreciate someone's humanity at SI sometimes because when they have an entirely different point of view than you do, all you have is their words to react to. I think it's important to try and remember that even if you had totally different opinions than someone at work, or a neighbor, you would recognize that they were human because you are experiencing them visually, with all of your senses, really.
You and Bill might have the same kind of dog, or love to play chess, or drive red Jeep Cherokees. Your children might be friends. You might not like Bill at all if you met him, but I bet you wouldn't call him names, and you WOULD recognize him as human. I am sure that in your real life you are reasonably polite, and would not savage him. That is what I am trying to create here--some minimally polite rules of engagement, so that this thread doesn't disintegrate into the kind of stupid wars you can find all over SI.
You don't have to share peace, love or understanding with anyone here, although I must say I recently saw you express amazement that you agreed with someone's position when you hadn't expected to. You can disagree vehemently with someone's political views, ideas, opinions or posts without, um, creating an additional orifice in their nether region. It's easy to pigeonhole people here, but it's extremely boring. We are all multidimensional, liberal on some issues, conservative on others, fanatical or not--that's what makes it interesting to me.
Anyway, I need for Bill to be here, because I am waiting for him to let me know when we win in Iraq, so I don't have to think about it all the time. |
