Monitoring the thread in case someone says something nice (thanks Wonko, George & others)
I'm just stunned by the degeneration of our culture in which grown men can anonymously insult each other, while hiding behind their keyboard persona and the cowardly and specious argument of personal safety and security. If your cyber-, home-, personal security is that inadequate, move into the desert and get off the grid.
1. Recognizing cowardly behavior is not the same thing as calling another man a coward. But by calling others a “jerk”, “Muslim sympathizer”, “clown”, “anti-gun troll” or “Fudd” we can make them “not us” and dismiss their arguments as having no value or meaning, while establishing our own as having validity while retreating emotionally and intellectually into our “like us” bubble.
2. Recognizing narcissistic and sociopathic ass-like behavior is not being “hypocritically judgmental” when it’s the truth, and some here have crossed that line.
3. Calling out inappropriate speech/words ie. "libtard" is not hypocrisy.
4. I don’t care if a poster goes by “Minnie Mouse” if he has questions/contributions to make regarding doubleguns. If someone wants to attack another here however, he should have the courage to use his real name. And I’ve not “outed” anyone’s real name, because it’s not my place to do so.
5. I’m still disgusted that Dave once referred to participants here as “kids”, and said so on Misfires. I assume he wouldn’t say that face-to-face to his personal physician, pastor, or the senior executive of the firm he works for. That is a highly inappropriate put-down toward other adult men and women whose participation and contributions (knowledge and money) maintain this website, and motivate the advertisers.
6. Global anger and free-floating hostility is toxic; to our health and our relationships. Maybe each of us should examine how many friends we still have, or family members still talking to us.
Keith: don’t “proof text” Scripture unless you’ve done the hermeneutic. Galatians 6:7 says “God will not be mocked.” Really.
Sorry. Facing bad roads in a 3rd world county, and another nice case of Giardia
tends to bolden one up.
I do try to follow Richard Baxter of Kidderminster’s advice
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/meetthepuritans/richardbaxter.html “The True and Only Way of Concord of All the Christian Churches”, London, 1680. (Quoting Lutheran theologian Rupertus Meldenius)
"In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity."
