Blogger FlameWar

Hmmmm... You know, I really would have imagined that I would be part of something like this, rather than sitting on the sidelines saying "Please! Please, fellas! Let's all be nice!"

Jeff Goldstein is angry about Hundred Percenter's with-us-or-against-us attitude on Terri, and especially angry about what seems to me to be a gratuitous remark about getting his "beenie" in a twist.

I suppose that could be read, charitably, as a reference to the old academic beanies worn by freshmen in, like, 900 A.D., but I kinda doubt it.

HundredPercenter baits back about Goldstein being a crybaby.

I realize this is a highly emotional issue. One reason I've managed to maintain some amount of perspective -- despite being strongly in the pro-Terri camp -- is that I know good-meaning and good-hearted people that, for whatever reason, just don't seem to get what this case was about.

Whether wrapped up in abortion rights, or mistakenly thinking this was a standard right-to-die case, or being subconsciously biased against the Christian right, or putting a bit too much faith in the rulings of a single judge, or just being not very well acquainted with the facts of the case -- a lot of people of good will have erred in their judgment and have supported, with good but mistaken intentions, the euthanization of physically-healthy woman on the thinnest possible evidence that such constituted her "true wishes."

They're not bad people. They're good people. They are just, like many good people are from time to time, very wrong about something rather important.

We will disagree from time to time. Not just on the right, but between right and left. And -- can't believe I'm saying this -- we can disagree without being disagreeable.

We can. I personally choose to be disagreeable, of course, but we -- by which I mean "you" -- can manage to remain civil, if we try.

I think I might have mentioned this before, but it's still worth remembering. I was posting on Slate's Fray at the time of the Clinton Impeachment Wars, which made for very angry and often personal on-line spats. During a particularly nasty exchange, one guy popped in-- a guy I'd never seen before -- and shared these words of wisdom:

You guys know that when the space aliens come, we're all gonna be on the same side, right?

Something to think about.

But HundredPercenter -- not looking to get de-linked or anything, but have a bit of caution about plainly Jew-baiting remarks. What does that accomplish? Nothing, nothing except animosity and hurt feelings.

Plus, those people control the media.

Thanks to Windrider 95.

Playing Ref: Jeff, I think you were way out-of-line to insult someone as a "Christ-humper." You're guilty of the same sin you're protesting, and the "she did it first" defense won't wash.

You can insult someone you're angry with without also insulting believing Christians, too.

Don't defend it. Apologize and retract. You're better than that. I think.

A quick apology is usually better than a prologned bout of back-tracking and "explaining." It's quick and painless and you even gain "manful admission" points.

posted by Ace at 01:51 PM

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