> > Bronte, who started the talk that led to the damn new > > rule, gives herself permission to rip into people. > > Where's the justice in the universe, right? > > I say no flame ocurred. For the record, I enjoy seeing > sacred oxes gored, or at least challenged. It is in-your- > face, toe to toe confrontation, and it is awesome. But I > say there has been no foul, and no harm. This is sport, > not a brawl. Let's keep it this way.
The "damn new rule" was bullshit. And most of us knew it at the time, and just ignored the posturing whiners who climbed on board and used it as a vehicle for *their* flaming of others who didn't "abide by" their idea of how others should live and conduct their onscreen communications. We all saw how long *that* lasted. We saw what happened the moment that one of the prime posturers, who took up the flag of "no flaming" and waved it like it was his right to be "hall monitor" here at FFL got *HIS* buttons pushed. Then it became non-stop-flaming on his part, calling anyone who disagreed with him perverts and predators. We saw the same thing with Bronte. All sweet and nice and offended at the "improper tone" of Fairfield Life, and especially its treat- ment of the few delicate "tender feeling level" women in its midst, until a new woman comes around and starts expressing tender feelings. Then she suddenly has the right to flame away. Bullshit, pure and simple. That's the way it ALWAYS is with Puritan move- ments to "clean up our town" or "clean up our newsgroup." The people who "sign up" for the new cleanup campaign don't have their buttons pushed at the moment, and thus are easily swayed by someone who does -- *by* the issue they're trying to get everyone to rally behind. But then the moment their buttons *do* get pushed, they're first in line to do the very thing they railed against earlier. It's just human nature, and I for one think that people should just lighten up about it. As long as they have egos to *get* offended by something that someone says, egos are going to get offended. And at that point they are going to do whatever they think is required to express their offended- ness and try to infect others with it. It's just what happens. "Rules" aren't going to change this, and posturing crusaders aren't going to change it. And the "rule" *itself* was a joke. If *anyone* should have been banned for a week for flaming, it should have been Saint Edg the Anti-Flamer himself, the posturing pissant who, mere days after pretending he was really interested in cleaning up the environment of FFL, did every- thing he possibly could to drag it down into a gutter of his own making. It's just SILLY, people. Lighten the fuck UP. This is a cyberbar full of people with EGOs. And egos are *always* going to get their buttons pushed, and in that button-pushed state of atten- tion feel that they have the "right" to say the very things that the day before they were denying someone else the right to say. If you want to "clean up" Fairfield Life, monitor your *own* thoughts and words, and leave off try- ing to do it with the thoughts and words of others.
