What the heck...?

[merimask]

I feel like everyone took their crazy pills this weekend.

 

Aside from the weather being perfectly shitty, I'm trying to stay busy & productive & keep making pretty things.  Being an emotional, feeling critter, it's been increasingly difficult to do this weekend because I feel beset by irrationality at every turn.

I can barely watch the news anymore because fully half of what I hear makes no sense to me at all.   Between Rush Limbaugh spewing hate & getting applause for it, Proposition 8 continuing to be the most evil little bit of legislation I can think of that's been passed in this country in a long time, and President Obama being blamed for the mess the economy is in by the very same people who happily supported deregulation & the trickle-down free market economy run by greedy shortsighted thieves...it just makes my head hurt.

LJ remains a quiet refuge for me to share my art & my thoughts, & even here I am blindsided by idiocy.  In a friend's journal, responding to a political entry (where I basically said no more than "yes, this." because politically we are similarly-minded) I got dogpiled by a raging right wing dittohead who's opinions were as infuriating as his inability to figure out how Spellcheck works, exactly.  So I did something I've never done before and banned the SOB.

Unfortunately I can't stop him in my friend's LJ where he continues to rage unchecked, attacking everyone in her journal who responded favorably to her entry (while not exactly attacking her or her entry).  It leads me to wonder what I would do if such a flame war broke out in my own journal.   It's not my business to tell other people how to conduct matters in their journals, but this is a social networking community.  If people start flinging sand, I see no reason why they shouldn't be kicked out of the sandbox.  I think this is why I'm so careful & selective about who I actually have on my f-list.  Everyone here behaves civilly towards each other...everyone is rational.  I know for a fact that there are people on my f-list who have opinions both religious & political that differ from my own, but we have too much mutual respect to pick fights in each other's journals (or with the people who reply there...which seems incredibly rude to me).

I resented the attack so much that I almost de-friended her...not because I was upset with her but because I feel that if her LJ is stalked by close-minded ScaryPerson, I'd rather not make myself available as a punching bag to said idiot.  In the end I didn't de-friend because I hate doing that, & frankly I like her.  However, I dislike drama.  I'm not here for drama.  So after banning Rush Jr. I decided that if I don't comment in her LJ anymore, he can't "get" to me anymore.  Why open myself up to unlooked-for and unsolicited attacks?  It seems foolish on my part to do so.

So, there's a new addendum to my own personal "no drama" policy.  If I get bitchslapped in your journal, that's the last time I'm ever going to comment there.  It seems fair enough to me.  Furthermore, if people who comment in my LJ get attacked by someone on my f-list, that person is off my f-list.  I'm not saying we all have to agree all the time about everything; I'm just saying it's rude and uncalled-for and there are other ways to debate an issue than to start a flame war in someone else's journal. 

 

Anyway, these are of course only my opinions.  Your mileage may vary. 

 

Comments

[chibi-kaz.livejournal.com]

I like to think that politics are like cigars and onions -- either everyone in the party does, or everyone does not. It should be the height of impoliteness to start a dust-it-up political fight if not everyone there is in the mood for such.

Now, I frankly sometimes rather enjoy a good revivialist political debate, Parlimentary style, but again, only if all parties are into it. And I certainly like to be able to have a beer with my opponent afterwards.

It sounds to me like this "Rush Junior" fellow was a troll, period, whether or not he had a legitimate ideological beef with the subject. Trolls are the kid that likes to stomp into the sandbox, kick around the sand, force all the nicer kids to leave, and then insist on his superiority for controlling said sandbox. (They're usually the doofus who's older than the other kids, because he got held back in school... and they're almost always "he"s also.)

Frankly, I just go find another sandbox.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

I think there's a place for political discussions but I also think that it's a subject fraught with peril. My beliefs are very clearly stated in my LJ, & I know how most of my friends feel, and if we have similar opinions we tend to say so. If we don't, we politely avoid the subject, because we respect each other.

The problem is when a stranger from outside this community of friends decides to go on the attack. Frankly it turns me right off. There's no point in having a rational discussion or debate with someone like that, because they are firmly entrenched in their opinion & unwilling to listen to the other side (or else, obviously, they'd just read & absorb & not start a flame war). Someone like that gets kicked off my LJ in a trice from now on. It hasn't happened yet but if it does...