Exactly, and that would be OK, but then you got all personal with me, saying that I would be dismissive of child abuse. That was a hurtful thing to say and completely unjustified and so, so untrue. This is where the conversation went off the tracks for me and stopped being about the girl and started being about you attacking me out of some personal issue of yours. The same thing happened with the child support issue (your sister) and the Nas/Kelis thread you Pitted me over (you thought I was calling you stupid and I wasn’t).
Yep, and sight unseen, I would not accuse a parent of abusing their child because it’s a very serious allegation. Which was my entire point, lost in your personal issue and urge to score some cheap debating points by attacking me and not my position, which you agree was not actually that far from your own.
I agree, and you can do that without a job. Relieve your own pain by doing something constructive. Posting on the Dope, and getting in all these messy quarrels, ain’t it. I know you say it doesn’t bother you, but it can’t be making you feel good either.
That’s true, but in this case it’s an internet message board and you are not in a professional capacity so I don’t see speculating on the possibility of child abuse as being out of the realm. To me it just seems odd that someone would run away from home and join a cult unless there is something behind it. When I ran away from home as a kid I went to my friends houses for a couple of days. I didn’t move to Florida and join a cult. And I would be a prime candidate for such behavior based on my history.
I dunno, it’s cathartic, but the quarrels are mostly over except for a few stragglers who can’t let it go.
I appreciate the apology. This is why mentions of my profession upset me. I take it very seriously, as I do the health and well-being of my students. I care about them a lot. I would not dismiss claims of abuse, and indeed, it’s illegal for me to do so. However, I would not make public claims or accusations about the parent either. It’s not my job to figure out the truth of the situation, only to report it to those who can ASAP. In that sense, my stance in the thread was entirely consistent with my professional stance IRL.
Again, this kid isn’t you. She got involved with these people online, and they may have fed her a bunch of bullshit that dovetailed with her own idea of herself as a potential martyr and hero, and her parents as oppressive, retrograde troglodytes (even though they let her be a cheerleader and all). We can’t know which it is. Sure it’s odd. It’s being investigated for that reason. The behavior of the Floridians was rather odd, and illegal, as well. Just because she took a course of action that you would not take does not mean that you have special insight into this that trumps anyone else’s experiences or impressions, nor that the people who disagree with you are dismissive of child abuse.
The quarrels may be over, but I don’t think you should assume that everyone you abused and insulted over your four-day spree is prepared to forget all of the various nasty, personal attacks you launched.
I see your apology as genuine – but as Munch says, you need to follow it up with an equally genuine change in your behavior.
Yeah, I’ve encountered the same thing. I’ll see an old thread and see some big douche being all douchy, and I’ll remember how they used to be a gigantic SMDB douche, and it turns out to be some guy who’s perfectly OK now, and I’ll think “Wow, I totally forgot they used to be a huge douche”. Other times, I’ll read an old post, and some douche will be saying douchy things, and I’ll think, “Yep, there’s the same old douchebag up to his same old douchebag tricks just like today, only back in 2002. Sucks to be them.”
Just as the ones who abused and insulted me shouldn’t mistake my apology for forgiveness. I’ll try to be nicer, but I remember who was unreasonably nasty to me.
Sure, I know that. This gets into the point though where there’s only so far it will go with only giving. The way people treated me with the Obama is Hitler parody was beyond the pale IMO, and I won’t forget soon. All I am saying here is that I will do my best to change tactics. This board is full of condescending assholes. I’m not going to pretend I’m the only one in order to win brownie points.
To be clear I think a lot of the condescending assholes are pushing their luck with their high and mighty stances. Munch is one of those people. I will not soon forget being called a troll and a liar repeatedly only to be condescended to about my behavior when I apologized. People can take or leave my apology as they choose to, but it is not to be misconstrued as a belief that I am the only one at fault. I think I was attacked by an irrational mob, that hasn’t changed just because I think I could have handled such a trivial thing differently. As I said, I feel sorry for the bystanders, not the primary actors. I think a lot of the lectures I am getting are prurient interest from people who don’t know when to let sleeping dogs lie. I’ll work to control my passions, but at heart I am a fighter and my first instinct when attacked is to fight back. I know enough about group behavior to know that the mob doesn’t always have the moral highground. There’s a lot of ‘everyone thinks so’ going around here wherein everyone is limited to the people who agree with the person speaking. I’ve had a number of people approach me with support in the past couple of days too.
I take responsibility because as I had the leadership position in all of this I could have made it bigger (which I did) or made it go away (which I didn’t), but to a lesser degree everyone who joined in the fray is culpable for their part.
So if you did something to offend me (general you) don’t push your luck.
This thread is not to be misconstrued as an apology for starting the threads I started. I am entirely unrepentant about that. If you don’t like the thread I started don’t post in it. It’s an apology for those I have called stupid recently or in the past.
No, I apologized by name to a lot of the people who I feel were wronged. The peanut gallery of old ladies at the backyard fence are pushing it IMO. If all I did to wrong you was start a thread you didn’t have to post in yeah, there’s not much to say, I don’t think I wronged you. There are probably people I neglected to mention and if they come with a legitimate complaint I’ll apologize. But I think a lot of people are just rubbernecking.
mswas, I recently came down on you in the pit, more out of frustration about the state of the health care system then anything.
Anyway I felt kind of bad about i. You seem quite alright in your other postings and seem to speak your mind, that’s rare sometimes these days. I’d like to apologize.
Thanks, and if I was rude to you in response, I apologize as well. I think health care is very fucked up and would like to see it fixed. Anthony Weiner made a very good case for Medicare for everyone, but I barely understand the technical aspects of it.
I’d like to see a change in culture where we spend the bulk of our disposable income and/or free time on being healthier. As a professional massage therapist the thing that bothers me the most about it is that it is a profession at all. I think everyone should know how to give massages and we should all be giving each other massages every day. The skills that I learned could be taught over the course a childhood quite easily. That would reduce medical costs significantly, bring us closer together, engender empathy and compassion in the entire populace and reduce our ambient stress and hostility significantly. I really truly believe that the fastest road to utopia would be to teach every kid how to give a massage, and start them early. I will teach my daughter for certain.
I fully own up to being condescending. And I stand by my accusations. Seems you’re not standing by your apology, as you continually chip away at it. Soon, it will only be valid on Tuesdays on a date divisible by 3.
Just wanted to put my two cents worth in here. mswas, I haven’t engaged in any quarrels with you. Nonetheless, you have nearly ruined the SDMB for me over the past couple of weeks. You’ve been offensive, and you’ve been everywhere. You’ve been obnoxious in just about every possible way, and you’ve made it nearly impossible to get away from you. It’s all very well to say that we should ignore your posts if we don’t like them, but if you’re smack in the middle of a thread, it’s pretty hard to follow the thread if I skip all of your posts.
If you say you haven’t been trolling, all I can say is that your posts certainly have appeared to be designed to provoke. THe last straw for me was that you apparently felt it necessary to create two threads in two different fora to say “RIP Mary Jo Kopeckne.” Since I didn’t open either one and thus don’t know the exact contents, I can only assume you felt you hadn’t garnered enough attention with the first one.
I guess my point here is that if you go around sticking pins into people, don’t be surprised if they’re skeptical when you say “Oh, I really didn’t mean it; I’ve been going through a hard time lately.” Especially when you then proceed to add that you really did mean it for x, y, z and anyone else who had it coming, and jab a few more pins while you’re at it.
I just want you to understand that it’s not just the people you’ve been in direct arguments with who have been affected by you. It takes a lot to ruin an entire message board for another person, but at least in my case, you’ve come damned close. Maybe applying a little thought for the consequences of what you say might be in order.
There should have been no problem with starting a thread in MPSIMS poking fun at Ted Kennedy for the Mary Jo Kopechne incident.
I previously had used an analogy of poking fun at the mistress of the South Carolina governor (a Republican), and the response (from a roving mod) was that murder was not comparable to adultery. Well, so what. Wildfires are not comparable to kittens, yet both are discussed in MPSIMS. The very fact that the thread was forbidden and that people feel like they’re buttons are being pushed for nothing more than the mention of a name reveals the extreme bias of the board and its mods.
It’s not trolling just because you have buttons all over you, some of which cannot help but be pushed. Suck it up, for God’s sake. Why should people have to shut up just because your sensibilities are set on super-hyper-triple-touchy? You wouldn’t bat an eye if an OP made fun of something politically acceptable to you.
And I can understand the left-wing and right-wing politics based boards raising a stink over Mary Jo Kopechne. But not here. This is supposed to be the StraightDope, not the LeftLeaningDope. I don’t blame mswas for being upset about it, but it’s true that he took the matter overboard. Still, it should never have been an issue to start with.
I’m sorry you are backtracking so quickly from your apology and considerations yesterday, because I believed the apology was sincere and that you had no ill intent in the Kopechne thread, although you communicated your point poorly.
I am giving you a formal warning for this direct insult to Munch. The implied insults to other posters are also not appropriate for MPSIMS. Your posting privileges may be discussed among the mods. I’ve left this thread alone so you could talk about issues you’ve had with other posters and perhaps achieve some resolution, but if there are any other comments of this kind, I’ll lock the thread.
Well then, I am sorry. You are specifically who this thread is for.
That you have a problem with this tells me that your view is at least partly unreasonable. If the mods hadn’t been overzealous and locked the first thread I wouldn’t have opened two. I was told in ATMB that I could reopen it in a different forum, so I did.
Mentioning Mary Jo Kopechne != sticking pins in people. I am not responsible for people’s inability to cope with the death of a public figure they do not know personally, particularly as that was a significant event in his life.
Fair enough. I will try and keep an eye out for the Oy!'s of this world in how I respond to other threads. However, with this caveat. It does not apply to threads that I start. If the subject matter of one of my threads upsets you that is not my problem. You can do as you said you did, and not read it.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have called Munch an asshole. But I think that Munch is only posting here to stir things up.
If you want to ban me from the forum that’s fine. I can live with it and I’ll take my lumps. I do not think I am even close to being the only one who has been unreasonable here, and I am not going to pretend that I do.
If that removes my posting privileges then by all means, remove my posting privileges.
I refer you to post 54 which states Munch’s intentions in posting in this thread quite clearly.