It's a constructive revelation that you, as the board's moderator, regard our dialogue as legitimate, and also that, apparently, I'm not included amongst those "who like to bait and rant and say nothing of substance..."
I'm not sure if those sentiments are shared by other contributors to this board .... but be that as it may.
We are, or certainly should be, entitled to our own opinions and should be free to express them within the "rules and regulations" of a board ..... 'and let the chips fall where they may', which, I must hasten to add, is an idiom that did not originate from me !
As a result of my first post on this board I got the impression that there were those who immediately concluded that I was a "torch bearer" for Barack Obama, due to the fact that I was impressed by the contents of his speech.
I guess that's not an unreasonable conclusion that could have been reached.
In order to pre-empt that conclusion I did, at the initial outset, suggest that one should attempt to "separate its contents from their opinion of the orator."
As I've taken pains to convey, it's my belief that one should be able to interrogate, study and absorb what someone has said and still find value in its contents, irrespective of whether or not one may favour that particular person.
My original decision to post on this board, which is openly hostile to Barack Obama, was to discover whether or not folk would be prepared to place the quality of the contents of his speech above what they thought of the man himself. Needless to say, what I regarded as quality of speech may not necessarily coincide with the opinion or conclusion of others .... but that's just the way things can go, I guess.
It certainly seemed a good arena to test that hypothesis.
Based on the replies that I've received I'll leave it up to others to decide whether or not that has been possible or desirable. |
