Grandpa Shooter said: Calm, concise language is always preferable to rampant emotionalisms. However,I can not imagine Patrick Henry standing with his peers and quietly, like Casper Milquetoast, say, “Give me liberty or give me death” I see it more like an impassioned man standing on a chair, shouting down the noise in the room, and at the top of his voice, yelling “GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH! There are times when standing toe to toe and declaring, “ENOUGH!” is the only reasonable course of action.
You weren't around for Legal and
Political, were you?
That subforum, and indeed the entire forum in general, became less "calm, concise" exchanges, but rather more "impassioned, shouting". It seemed there at times it became a competition for who could be the loudest, tallest person on that chair. Legal and Political was widely regarding as a cesspool that few wanted to wade into anymore. And those who had taken a dip in it weren't showering off before coming to relax in the hot tub with the rest of us.
It became too much. Rather than productive, it became divisive. Arguments and bad blood flowed openly on the rest of the board. Ultimately we had to conclude we were not fulfilling that mission well, nor were we showing our best colors.
Hard decision. But we got rid of Political. No doubt Patrick Henry wouldn't have liked it much. That's OK. Discourse akin to Patrick Henry's has its place, and there are times when its appropriate. But for some the need to express oneself with righteous indignation took on more importance than the goal of presenting a place for civil, polite, reasonable discourse. Reading some of those exchanges, there were times I felt some sort of civil war had broken out and it was time to choose sides.
We aren't at that point.
We got rid of Political. That's just the way it is. Providing the disgruntled with a microphone isn't what we're here for. But that's what the board was becoming. You might be OK with that going on in your house. We prefer things a little differently here.
Given a choice between the common, banal "I like xyz guns better than abc" and the common, equally banal, "Give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" soapbox speeches, I would rather the former. There is less passion, less divisiveness, and more congenial conversation when the most we can disagree on is which caliber for zombies.
You weren't here. But rest assured, as commonly as you see the 9mm vs 45 debates, we saw an equal amount of cop-bashing rants; government-hating table-pounding speeches, shrill shouting matches, and a general breakdown of gentlemenly discourse. The Staff closed more threads, edited more posts, and banned more people over behavior in L&P than anywhere else on the board.
It got old. It got tired. Eventually far too often it got nasty. Then it got done. It is no more.
I imagine anyone who was here then, and remembers how things digressed, would probably agree we're better off after that decision.
