MSNBC: US Troops Fire on Iraqi Wedding, More Than 40 Killed

A. Wedding celebrations in many MANY cultures go on till the early morning Hours, Infact Many marriages in the Middle East/Asia start around 8-9 PM, so it could easily be that they were having a marriage.
B. Thats like saying hoow many times have you seen a Marriage on the Beach, underwater, in a tree or whatever, Hey its their marriage, they can have it wherever. In fact, they probably had it out in the desert so that they could spread out and enjoy in privacy of family members... You know instead of booking a large church or banquet hall.

 

O yea, and in the other wedding thread can anyone decifer what Olliez meant in his post, because I just am dying to hear wth he is talking about.

 

What I'm saying is stay on topic.

Debate is fine. Insult is not.

The D&D has gotten WAY out of line. It is such that many posters and admins avoid it like the plague. In many ways, it has become the joke that "that is where the nutcases go to scream the same **** at each other over and over, day after day."

It's quite predicitable the responses specific posts will provoke and that's fine. However, the D&D is a luxury, not a necessity. When it was created, there were really two choices:

1. Eliminate all political, religious, racial, etc. debate on the board.
2. Create some place to let it happen.

As the D&D has gotten more and more contentious - some of the stuff in here would NEVER be tolerated in the GARM, for example - it has re-kindled the idea that maybe this stuff shouldn't even be on the BBS.

So, I'm saying the insults, the shouting matches and the rest not only make this a relatively inhospitable place to be, they also liken the chances that the D&D will eventually cease to exist.

 

Understood and appreciated. But as MacBeth has astutely pointed out, my labeling BS as a racist is, so far as I'm concerned, not an insult but sadly a statement of fact. I'm attacking neither his intellegence level, whatever that may be, nor his background, but rather his current outlook, which he demonstrates here amply.

 

By the way, I have NEVER said anything to anyone here that I would not say to them in person.

 

I was initially against splitting the forums, but I didn't say anything about it at the time. This isn't a guaranteed free speech zone though, it's a private site. (A privilege, not a right.) I figured whatever the mods wanted was fine. Now though I can't even imagine the two forums together. I definitely think I was wrong and I definitely think the split was a good thing.

I agree with pretty much everything Jeff said. This place has gotten bad and I don't come here near as much as I used to. Even so, the characterization of D&D as a place where a bunch of nuts come to scream at each other about the same things over and over again is also why I don't go to the GARM as much as I used to. Flip side, I also really hate it when people denigrate political discussions as a rule. Like it's silly or stupid somehow to discuss politics. If you don't want to, don't. But there aren't too many more important things to talk about. I'm not saying that means they need to be discussed on a Rockets board, but to dismiss those discussions as crank fests out of hand is just wrong. I'm not saying Jeff's doing that -- not at all -- but the general public he references does it on a regular basis.

As for this incident, it's almost like a retaliation foul. The racially insensitive poster (is that better?) gets away and the guy who calls him out gets the foul. I'm not at all sure there's a better way to handle that stuff, on the court or the board. The moderators probably spend more time policing this forum than they want to already. But, while I admit my bias, there are specific posters who have dramatically altered the character of the forum for the worse (Jorge is even proud to have done so, though he wouldn't say it was a change for the worse). Some surely think I'm one of them. Again I admit my bias. I remember a time when we had heated discussions here though and still managed to stay friendly and almost respectful (Refman and I, in particular, used to really get into it, but I think and I hope we remain friendly even if lines were crossed). There are some here who take pleasure in derailing threads and take pains to provoke people here though, and they stand alone in that offense. Not meaning to just pick on Jorge here since there are others, but one man's "psychological warfare" is another man's textbook definition of trolling.

If this board goes, that'll be too bad. A lot of great stuff's happened here. But calling someone a racist isn't a top three offense in my mind, particularly when it's a direct response to commentary no one has suggested wasn't 'racially insensitive.' While there are hard left and hard right people here, there are some that come to debate and some that just come to pick fights. Personally I think you could kick three or four posters and watch the level of debate rise like crazy. But whatever the mods do is fine by me. It's their site, it's a great site, and D&D or not, I'm grateful for it.

p.s. You are all the gayest monsters since gay came to gay town.

 

It does get tiring. You put some effort into a post and it gets dismissed with the latest trendy Limbaugh insult. Or something of great political significance, like the recent comments of General Zinni, gets ignored by the Bush apologists... except for one or two comments that come after repeated attempts to get some discussion going. (for the substance of the response, see "trendy Limbaugh insult")

I wonder sometimes why I bother. As I've said before, most of my friends who are "political" live out of town, or else I'm in situations where I can't discuss politics before of my significant other's position in state government here. The discussion has gone down a great deal in quality. I used to read a lot of excellent stuff here, from both sides and the "middle", but not so much any longer. It's a damn shame. I'm not going anywhere, unless I lose my temper and get booted... which is always a possibility, but I miss the better discussions we used to see, and I'm not at all convinced, Batman, that the "split" was a good idea. We don't get the diverse responses that were around when these things were in Hangout. I miss that.

 

Two things:
A. I love that many folks are rationalizing "Oh, in different cultures, the wedding may go on until the wee hours....etc." Let me see here. We have a U.S. military trying to prosecute a war. Common sense would dictate that firing weapons in the air may draw attention of a nature they may not want. Folks, this was 10 miles from the Syrian border out the middle of no where! When did you go out into the wilds of west Texas to have a wedding, eh? 30 males of military age, who were armed with AK's and RPG's, don't sound like any wedding I've attended.

B. NYROCKET, you wonder why you're on ignore. When someone drops the racism bomb, I know they are beaten.

Jeff,
I know things have gotten ugly, but I've at least mellowed.....some. We just need to have a little more clarification on what can and can not be said here. If someone does something worthy of banning, ban them. But let's have some very simple ground rules here (what constitutes a ban-worthy trespass) to give people some needed boundaries.

 

Most definitely.

 

Bama made no mention of race in his remarks. Why call him a racist?

MacBeth: in your examples, you use defamatory language against subjects of potential topics (i.e. Clinton). I think Jeff's point is that the abusive language should not be aimed at other posters. That more than anything is what makes this place unseemly. Love, giddyup.

 

A. Just because you are small minded fellow who doesn't know of traditions outside of the vast desert of Texas to figure out that YES PPL IN THE DESERT HAVE WEDDINGS IN THE DESERT. Its how they enjoy it, If you havn't been the nights in the desert are cool and relaxing. And since you say that our US military is trying to prosecute a war, well the pppl sure as hell didnt ask for one, and they are trying the best to continue with their lifestyles, WHo the **** are we to give them a guidline on how to celebrate their happines, be it with guns and bullets. I dont care if you havnt been to any weddings, our soldiers should atleast be given the run down on the culture before they are thrown to police a country. Its common sense, and it doesnt take more than a few hours a day.

 

What I'm saying is that this place has gotten out of hand. If you cannot be civil in discussions, if you stoop to name calling and if you enjoy mocking others as part of your personal diatribe, I can promise you it won't be long before both you and the D&D are gone.

Originally on this BBS, personal insults were off limits. Period. You could crack jokes, debate vigorously, but the minute you called someone an ******* or something equivalent, end of story.

Because the board is simply too big to police, it has been difficult to monitor everything.

In addition, during the course of the time this board has been operating, there has been a growing use of talk-radio-like insults and taunts as a tool for debating. I know a lot of people are fond of using the "you're an idiot so your opinion is clearly wrong" tactic for dismissing something, but it has always been a problem on this board.

And do you know WHY it is a problem? Because it provokes people who might not otherwise hurl insults to hurl them with the same sense of anger and frustration that anyone who is tanted might respond. In person, there might be a physical confrontation. On here, it is name calling.

I'm not saying the board hasn't had its incidents in the past. It has. I've been in one or two myself. But they ALWAYS resulted in someone getting banned. As the board has gotten larger, it has become almost impossible to monitor every little spat and so the contentiousness has grown and it is particularly bad in the D&D.

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On the topic at hand, I find it funny how predictable the defense of posters is when I say they are out of line. Liberals don't seem to mind me telling a conservative poster to settle down, but the minute I take aim at someone who is more liberal, the "what exactly is considered out of line on this board and why was this a problem" questions come out of the woodwork. It is no different on the other side of the aisle either.

The truth is, it would be a much more interesting place if posters were more like Major or mr paige. Not only are they articulate debators of issues, they are also consistent and I can't recall a time when either of them personally attacked another poster. They let their intellegence and opinion speak for them. This place would be a lot more enjoyable if more people followed their example.

 

I am as guilty of hurling insults as anyone (though I only hurl them at one person), which is the reason that I ignored the person who drove me to insult. I have found that this forum is far more civil now than it was when I didn't have to click [here] to see that stuff.

Take a page from my book. If you find yourself driven to insult a particular poster, just ignore them. Your blood pressure will go down and your intelligent, reasoned debate will go up.

 

Jeff, your post should be made a sticky and those that don't follow it to a T (which I haven't, obviously) should be dealt with, even if one of those posters is me.

 

I don't think I've called anyone an idiot or something like that here recently, but I guess baiting is just as bad as the actual insult .



Bait

 

Jeff, in order to support your allegation, kindly point out where I have called a person here a 'despicable racist'. Thanks in advance.

I find it amazing how people who disagree with me politically somehow think that I personally insult and attack others. I make opinionated posts, then it is *me* who is on the receiving end of personal attacks. I would say that for every generalization I make (not person-specific, but broad statements), I am personally attacked with name calling and vulgarity at least 5 times. Minimum. My initial statements are *nothing* in comparison to the attacks. You should read the vulgar that andymoon and others direct towards me. The same goes for others who call me idiot, moron, etc. This is a very long list that includes almost all of the liberals on this BBS. Let's face it, this BBS is overwhelmingly liberal in bias. All I ask is fairness from you Jeff, regardless of political affiliation. Thank you.