Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Defensive Homeschoolers?

incogneato wrote to me:
>And you're an idiot

I merely responded to an insulting post that you directed to me and explained politely that I thought your post insulting me was rude. I did not initiate any exchange or insults with you at all; you chose to insult me.

And just for the record, I do not think you or anyone else here is an "idiot."

But thank you for your comment. I hope you will leave your post up and not edit it out in a cooler moment.

All the best,

Dave

Ah, incogneato!

You chose to edit your comment, after all. What a shame.

It was so nice and pithy when it merely said to me:
>And you're an idiot

No one here is a victim. But you did choose to post a message to me, not in response to anything I had posted to or about you, that gratuitously insulted me. I simply pointed ouot politely that your doing so was rude.

It indeed was.

That's not playing the victim -- it is merely responding politely to your unsolicited insults.

This is all rather silly, but I think it does demonstrate very nicely my original post pointing out the negative effects that the predominant mode of socialization in our society has on the emotional and psychological development of so many who mature (or fail to mature) in our society.

I certainly do not claim to be a "victim,� but I do think your and Kriston�s statements do nicely illustrate my earlier point about how �personalizing� an issue can be used to bully people and attempt to silence them. Of course, sometimes this does not work.

All the best,

Dave

Okay, Hector Projector.

My last post to you, Dave:

YOU'RE being silenced?

How many lines of text have you written in your silence compared to the number I've written as you keep invoking my name?

Clearly you are free to say what you like. Have at it!

I'm out.

OHGrandma,

I�m with you a hundred percent. As I think I�ve now made clear, I�m a quite impassioned defender of free and open discussion, and, even though I disagree strongly with traditional Christian beliefs, I am deeply appalled by attempts to limit Christians� freedom of expression.

When I was in public high school, our sophomore English teacher (a brilliant teacher � the best I�ve ever had) assigned the book of Job in the OT and also MacLeish�s play �JB,� and we compared and contrasted the two different presentations of the same material. The teacher, I suspect, was an agnostic, and some of us in the class were agnostics, deists, atheists, etc. But the teacher explained quite clearly that we were not discussing whether Job was true (I doubt that many Christians even care whether Job is literally true or simply a parable) but merely looking at the larger questions raised by the book and how these questions were also addressed by Archibald MacLeish.

No one complained.

I mentioned this a few months ago to a friend who is a teacher in one of the better local public high schools. John told me that there is no way he could do this today.

I have also been told by some friends who work in the public schools and who are responsible for overseeing �church-state� issues that they can approve using school funds to purchase a copy of the Holy Quran, but not a copy of the Bible!

Something is very wrong.

You wrote:
>I mean things like my GS8, then 6, was told he could not read his Bible in school. Are you all OK with censorship, as long as the book being censored is one you wouldn't read?

I have to admit, that, if my kids were in that school, even though we are atheists, I�d send them to school with a copy of the Bible (after all, everyone should know the Bible � it�s part of our common cultural heritage) and, when they were ordered not to read it, I�d call the ACLU and force a test case.

I don�t like confrontation, but the price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance.

Frankly, I�m not sure even how offensive the �filth� and �stink rubbing off� comments were. They would certainly cause anyone to be taken aback, but I would have used them as a somewhat unconventional conversational opener and found out what the evangelical Christian�s real beef with that school was. Maybe she was just misinformed and thought they were teaching all the children to be witches, but maybe she had some serious points that she could have presented rather than letting the conversation end with the rather inarticulate word �filth.�

As the ACLU likes to see, the solution to �wrong� speech is more speech. To connect it the original topic of this thread, far too many Americans have allowed their own misguided �defensiveness� to serve as an excuse for limiting free and open discussion.

That�s wrong and needs to be energetically resisted by all decent folks of all religious and political persuasions.

You wrote:
>OK, off my soapbox�

Hey, keep that �soapbox� handy. It�s the truest symbol, even better than Old Glory herself, of what America is really all about!

All the best,

Dave

Kriston,

Me silenced? Nope. Not a chance. Hundreds have tried, none has ever succeeded.

No, no one has silenced me and I'm not a victim. I hope that's clear. I have been insulted in some rather strange and nasty ways, but I'm a grown-up, and this really does not much bother me. I'm just not as "defensive" about such things as some people are.

And, I think the dead horse may finally have breathed his last.

Even though I know some people are offended by "open and frank discussions," I really do think this has been illuminating on the issues of socialization in contemporary America and the resulting widespread and bizarre "defensiveness" that now so horribly pervades this country. As I've said, I'm getting a huge kick out of this gutsy black preacher back in Chicago: you go, Jeremiah Wright -- three cheers for the First Amendment!

One key reason I am homeschooling really is that I truly want my kids to grow up being able to listen with open mind and open heart to someone like Jeremiah Wright and not simply dismiss him because so many "right-thinking" citizens have announced that he "offends" them.

In the same spirit, I sincerely do hope to learn from your future posts on various subjects.

Sincerely, I wish you all the best.

Dave

This is some bizarre through the looking glass version of my favorite SUPPORT board, isn't it? I will admit that I thought the conversation was amusing until very recently. Not any more.

Lorel,

You really haven't seen this sort of thing on the Web dozens of times before???

A couple years ago, I was on a general discussion board concerning religion and, when a couple of us happened to mention that we did not think Christianity was true, one guy started announcing that our saying this was a "personal insult" to him and he tried to demand that we retract our heretical statements.

This went on and on for a week or so with him getting angrier and angrier; he ended up typing all in caps to try to get us to stop "insulting" him by the fact that we did not happen to share his religious beliefs. It also turned out that, in his unique perspective, we were insulting the entire United States of America, and, for all I know, the whole universe.

It was awfully funny; all of us thought it was absolutely hilarious -- except for poor deluded EK himself.

I've seen this sort of thing all over the 'Net. Haven't you?

I'm afraid I always find it quite educational to see this sort of thing when it happens -- amazing what you can learn about experimental social psychology on the Web.

At any rate, whether you love it or hate it, there is nothing that can be done to prevent it -- people will be people.

And just for the record, I still like Kriston and incogneato and look forward to reading their future posts (although it seems I can now reply as I like to incogneato's posts, and she will never know what I've said!).

Sorry for being so cheerful about all this, but I�m just a positive, people-loving kind of guy.

All the best,

Dave

Dave,

This board has been a truly special place on the net, and I would like to see it remain that way.

In the past people disagreed, but it was always a respectful debate and if another poster was offended, the usual answer was a simple apology. I tell my children that an apology that contains the word "but" is not sincere. If you hurt someone's feelings, intentionally or not, "sorry" is appropriate. Your long winded explanations did not serve to soothe, but rather to inflame. Can you see how the replies escalated as you continued to beat that poor horse?

I enjoy your point of view, and hope that you will continue to post here. I *like* you! I think you have a lot to share with the group. But if you really want me to be honest, you remind me of my son who has Asperger's, in that he often gets into the same sort of endless discussions that end up one sided and sounding like a rant. He simply does not know when to quit.

I apologize for being so blunt, and I do not hold you solely to blame for the negativity. But since you addressed me here, I thought I would respond.