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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (49049)	6/4/2002 1:34:55 PM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

E, I will ruminate a bit on your brief comments... although with some trepidation of starting up a whole new reprise of "the controversy." I don't consider (never have) anyone on SI to be a "friend." I have never met any SI poster in person, nor do I even know the real name of any SI poster for sure. I have gone through periods of being quite friendly with any number of posters, but it has been my experience that such friendliness is fragile and very subject to going on the rocks as a result of clashes on issues. By the same token, finding one's self on the same side of a contentious issue with some other poster can create a new or restored aura of "friendship" that may last only as long as the issue lasts. This fluidity in how strangers relate to one another is just a common aspect of group dynamics, as might occur, for example, during jury service. When you say, "I only know what you did here," your perception of such is no doubt vastly different from mine. That would apply as well to my perception of what you did here. I look at this way: You chose to to be the point-person in putting the case of Ch-Poet on trial on these message boards -- marshalling evidence, presenting arguments, and seeking a verdict. Having no stake in the outcome of the case (in the sense that the outcome could not affect me in any meaningful way), I served here as a member of the jury. One difference, compared to a real trial, is that I could react to your presentation as it went along. The long and the short of it is that I found much of your case to be unconvincing and unsupported by the evidence. At every point where I did, I said so, and explained why. My verdict (stated several times) was that CH was guilty of some degree of harassment, not guilty of stalking, nor guilty of any of the even more serious charges which I felt you were alluding to, such as some form of sexual predation. A sidelight of the "trial" was that quite a number of posters appeared to find CH guilty of all charges early on. This led to a lot of contentiousness between these posters and those few posters, including myself, who did not agree. A great deal of anger surfaced, with verbal attacks back and forth, and even some overt acts, such as my banning from the SMBR thread for being on the "wrong" side of the issue. This became a matter for me separate from the case itself, and perhaps for some other posters as well. I can only speak for myself on this side issue, and say that I react strongly against what I perceive as an instance of a posse or a mob bent on administering curbside justice and punishing all who do not go along. That characterization of what was happening is mine alone, and may not be shared by anyone else. Yet, it accounts for a goodly part of "What I did here," and why. This whole affair has no meaning to me on a personal level, which probably is the biggest difference between the two of us. For me, the concept of "friendship" never played any part in the long, drawn out controversy. I never saw the whole thing in any other light than as allegations made, evidence offered, and a fair verdict. I don't make the claim to have been positively, absolutely, unequivocally objective in how I viewed the case. Being a captive of my experiences, like everyone else is, I happen to have some degree of skepticism concerning the possibility of ever being able to prove specific causality with any person's stress condition. I also may be less inclined than some others as to far I will go in crediting the written word with the power to inflict injury (I will give it some credit). Perhaps if this had been a real trial you would have asked cogent questions of me, and then peremptorily challenged me off the jury.