I had some withdrawal pains when the decision to confine the scope of discussions was first announced. After thinking about it, I have decided that I welcome this change, because I found it hard to find anything half way sensible and anything other than negative, bashing this, bashing that. I also found too much with which I did not want to be associated.
While I learned some things and found it seductive, most of my posting was an effort to inject some sanity or balance along with a less negative viewpoint. Trying to be level headed should not require being on the defensive, so I will simply stop participating in negative this/negative that threads.
I wrote a set of guidelines almost a year ago for my own multimedia gun site. Upon reviewing the text, I found it very much in line with the new policy at THR. One thing it includes that has not been mentioned here explicitly is a prohibition of "ugly American nationalism", acknowledging that the site was potentially read worldwide and that it would not contain anything of which I was personally ashamed, unwilling to sponsor, and for which I was unwilling to be accountable by implication.
The guiding principle that I and two other moderators use is to limit anything that is "destructive" to the list. Religious doctrine and off topic politics are specifically mentioned as unwelcome. A post must have some bearing on gun ownership.
The essential element of a forum is that subscribers should be generally like minded. The main premise of the forum defines the essential common ground. It makes perfect sense to require that threads have some bearing on gun ownership.
I think it is best to discuss politics within a group that is not far apart in position, so I plan to do my politicking on a political party site. Otherwise one might lurk on a forum to see what other viewpoints might be rather than be confrontational in response. That is to say that if there is any bashing to be done, it will be where no one differs wildly from such a sentiment. Otherwise nothing good will come of it. The GOPUSA site includes a gun advocate forum, so I think I may hang out there for awhile.
Where there is no common ground politically, there will be an effort to dominate or defend, so bickering and endless back and forth bigotry will be inevitable. There is little successful persuasion, only defense of ones position. Nothing good comes of it. Those who actually value that turmoil as an intellectual game should find a down and dirty board that no way could be considered "the high road".
