I knew a British freelance journalist here in Thailand who was a total nut on the Palestinian issue. He was completely pro-Palestinian, hated Israel with a fiery passion, and if the topic ever managed to come up, which it invariably did whenever he appeared, he would natter on endlessly and volubly about it, especially when there were pro-Israelis like myself around. The guy just would not shut up, and even people who agreed with him got annoyed as hell. He’d send out e-mails with links to pre-Palestinian books, articles and videos that no one ever checked out because he was being so annoying. In fact, he was SO obnoxious that it made you want to go out and shoot a Palestinian baby just to piss him off. He managed to alienate just about everyone, fellow thinkers and others. The last I heard, he’s down South, working as some sort of real-estate reporter in Phuket. No doubt he’s annoying everyone down there, too.
For some reason, he’s popped into my mind. I don’t know why.
I think it was an error to move it to Great Debates in the first place.
There’s a difference between “Ask Laura Ingalls about about life in The Big Woods” and “Ask Laura Ingalls to discuss the nuances of American ideals about manifest destiny vis-a-vis the problem with the native Americans”.
The OP was proposed the first topic, certain people wouldn’t let it stay that way. Those people should have been warned and the thread not allowed to be hijacked by a few people with an agenda determined on derailing the thread. .
Because the thread is about “What’s life like there?”, not “What her views on international politics, morality, or whatever other idiotic hijack you feel like attempting in yet another thread”.
If you want to discuss the morality or legality of the situation (both valid topics), open your own damned thread instead of your usual routine of crapping up everyone else’s.
He (he’s now clarified that he’s a “he”) said that he viewed his decision to become a settler as a political statement and he said people could ask whatever they wanted. The strictures you are claiming existed on the thread were never requested. The nature of the OP was already polemic and political. Asking questions you personally find uncomfortable is not thread shitting.
I’m sorry this is just not true. There is a link on the first page of thread that will take you straight to the OP to read for yourself. In it you will find Shinna talking about living over the green line, making a political statement by being there and that the world at large thinks people such as himself are crazy for living where he does. He then goes on to say “if anyone has any questions”, ask them.
I agree that it was wrong to move it to GD. But after it was, it was wrong for Tom to limit the scope of the questions. I further agree that Dio is way out of bounds in these threads. I have no desire to attack the OP but lets be real, the way Shinna describes it he is living in a normal situation. The only real interesting thing to be gained from the original thread is what do the people who live over the green line think about doing so, politically speaking. The fact that interest in the original thread has all but stopped once restrictions have been placed on the questions I think proves it.
Given that we moved it back, it would seem that we are in agreement.
As I noted, earlier, we have not had all that many recent “Ask the. . . .” threads and the protocol for handling the situation if a debate broke out was not that clear among the current staff.
We have rectified that situation and I believe the whole staff has a better consensus on how to treat similar situations in the future.
Once I saw the thread, I knew that it was not going to remain in Great Debates. I needed to halt the hijack long enough for the staff to consider the issue and decide which forum would best suit the thread. Unfortunately, I saw the thread moments before I had to leave for work, so whatever choice I made, (including possibly temporarily closing the thread or sending it back to MPSIMS with a hasty note to that forum’s Mods), was going to be an incomplete and troubling action.
I had no problem with questions about the OP’s views of Eretz Yisrael or how the the OP viewed international opinions on the settlements. On the other hand, I have never agreed with the notion that every poster is entitled to badger any other poster to demand a specific answer. Once a poster has responded, as long as the response is not evasive, further badgering for a different answer is simply harrassment. (Employing the word “criminal” aimed at the OP was also out of bounds, but in the limited time I had to address the matter–and with the thread having been punted across a couple of fora–I was not going to make an issue of that when I posted my admonition, hoping that my instructions would stop that tack.)
I agree that there was no need to call the OP a criminal. I agree that every poster is not entitled to badger any other poster to demand a specific answer but the poster in question should have been reprimanded alone and not let his actions shut the rest of us down asking those questions. The OP was evasive. If you remove the political questions from the thread what is left? And I’m sorry but opening a thread calling yourself “crazy” then going on to describe your choices to live over the green line and that that choice is making a political statement that goes against world opinion and then refusing to discuss those issues in any meaningful way is weasley at best.
That said, this is not a hill I choose to die on and I appreciate your response.
It seems to me that the OP is being “protected” from the difficult questions. You admit to living in occupied land, against the wishes of (most of) the rest of the world - given this its inevitable that political questions on attitudes are going to be asked.
To disallow them just legitmises the choice the OP has made, and is tacit support for living in the occupied territories, I really hope Shinna comes back and starts answering some of the tough questions.
It wasn’t because of a question. The mods only chastised people for badgering the OP with insulting accusations of being a criminal. And note that it was clearly badgering. It wasn’t just a one-off post.