# Our Christian war machine

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-christian-war-machine/695047>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 7, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-christian-war-machine/695047 "2014-08-07T18:21:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-christian-war-machine/695047/61 "2014-08-16T16:43:36Z")

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> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#):
>
> I would say it’s more like:
> 
> Jack: I hate potato chips because they’re greasy.  
> William: Oh yeah, do you also hate other greasy foods like …?  
> Deschambres: No I don’t, but they’re different because …
> 
> And what’s important here is that “Deschambres” didn’t really buy into the grease angle completely altogether.
> 
> In this case, the standard that Sicks Ate was promoting was that “real persecution” was what’s happening in Iraq now. It would follow from that any other groups suffering a lesser level of persecution were not really being persecuted. But you were not the one who adopted this definition of persecution. Whether you do or don’t take that approach to other groups wasn’t relevant to whether Sicks Ate did, because you were not the one who should have done so based on his own post.
> 
> So your distinction may have been valid for you but was just a distraction in relation to the question posed to Sicks Ate.

You are responding in a public forum. Anyone who agrees with him can validly respond to the question about what he says. If you want to talk to someone specifically, without anyone else chiming in, that’s why we have private messages.

You are free not to respond back if you find it to be a distraction. You are free to tell the person that you still want to hear from them. But there is absolutely no rule of decorum on forums that only the person asked the question may respond.

See, I’m responding to you now, even though you weren’t talking to me. This is a message board. That’s what we do. If you don’t like it, you’re participating in the wrong medium.

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