I’m known (IRL) often for being ‘brutally honest’, especially in my work. So, I’ll tell someone to their face that in my professional opinion, that the reason they’re not getting hired isn’t cause they’re a convicted felon, it’s cause they reek of marijuana. Or that, again in my professional opinion, that w/a criminal record of bad checks, credit card fraud and shoplifting, accounting isn’t a good career option.
However, when I heard that a client was diagnosed w/Hep. C, I didn’t choose that moment in time to suggest to her that maybe she’d brought it on herself. And, I expressed condolences to the son of the woman who died of a drug overdose, instead of saying “wow, we knew it would happen some day”.
pretending that a rude in your face comment is ‘merely honestly offering their opinion’ is itself a deceptive way of dealing w/other people. Appologizing by telling people that “you started it and were worse offenders than me and besides you goaded me into it, so it’s really your fault” isn’t an appology.
and, bottom line - participation in a message board is voluntary. YOu choose the threads you open, and respond to. If you know, by historical evidence, that your own ‘honest’ thoughts will quickly end up with a flamefest, it’s disingenuous to the extreme to pretend that you have no responsability for the resulting eruptions.
My dad is a die hard Republican, to this day believes that Nixon was hounded out of office. We don’t generally discuss politics. If it’s possible (and it seems to be) that I can continue to have pleasant family outings w/family, where I have little control over the conversation, and cannot, in good conscious refuse to see them, then it’s absolutely possible for some one who holds opinions that they know are considered hateful, obscene and insulting by other members of a message board, to simply not participate in discussions/threads where that particular aspect of their belief system would be called out.
you have attended dopefests, and actually met people who had lifestyles that you ‘disapprove of’ (or whatever). Did you find it necessary to share all of your thoughts w/them? probably not.
and ya know what? when a client once asked me “what do you think” about a situation, my reply was “You don’t want to know”. So, if in the very rare occasion that some one actually asks for your specific opinion on ‘gee, I wonder what you think about g/l/tg/b folks’, one possible truthful response could actually be “I really don’t care to discuss it thanks.”.
but then, if you chose that particular road, you wouldn’t have the fun of playing the wide eyed innocent,being insulted for merely expressing honest opinions.
Yes, nasty things were also said to you, and JD. However, once you light the fuse to the firecracker, why do you express surprise when it goes “Boom”?
