I've been working on this for a week.  Its as done as it is going to get.  So ready or not:

This has been a long time in coming.  A head has come to pass over politics and the poly threads here.  A lot of people are disgusted with them and have left because of them.  It’s sad, and a sadder reason on top of it.  I get that.  This place is about friends, diversity, fun, music, information, and politics.  Music is about politics in so many ways.

Politics is a wide reaching subject.  It is more than discussing elections and politicians.  Its also about the dynamics of relationships.  How people get along with each other.  A formal way to discuss diplomacy in understanding interpersonal relations where things are gained and lost.  Like anything else in life that requires give and take, dead horses can be found everywhere, and the temptation to go kick something that doesn’t kick back can be hard to resist.  It requires will power to over come passion and caring to prevent twisted ankles to the kickers and hurt feelings to the on lookers.

A part of life is the act of rubbernecking.  Slowly driving by a wreck that may be in front of you and unavoidable or looking across to the lanes going in the other direction and looking at something that while it does not affect you directly it makes you slow down because all it takes is one person ahead of you to slow down and look over resulting in everyone behind that person to be forced to slow down as well.  This notion has applications to life everywhere.  I’m going to try and apply it here.

The forum part of RP has been around for a very long time in the sense of the Internet.  It is unique as it is self moderating and has survived so long in this way.  We are adults and are left to and expected to behave as adults.  As with any group of adults, bonds are formed and broken along the way.  Its just how life works in general.  People come together for temporary reasons and separate when those needs are met.  People can come together because of deeply shared sentiments that will form new bonds that can last a lifetime as well.  Like in real life friendships that are long term require people to step out for shorter or more lengthily periods of time due to personal needs or circumstances beyond their control.  But when they return, are accepted back with the understanding that, to be blunt, shit happens.  Its usually harder on the returnee, if their absence was abrupt and forced that left behind hurt feelings and broken commitments.  The need to make amends can twist in the mind of the returnee, but if a true friendship exists, the receiving friends will find ways to make the returnee feel welcome and comfortable and allow them time to air their thoughts or not about what happened or why.  This is the way of the older part of our population, who never had things like the Internet to always keep in touch with people over time wherever they maybe.  People of my age group, I hit 60 shortly, are experiencing reconnection on massive orders because of things like Face Book and Classmates.  Time heals wounds, some but not all as the Inet is proving in an unavoidable way. 

So back to the rubbernecking phenomenon and RP.   The poly threads represent car wrecks to many, maybe even most for all I know.  But when contained inside the threads themselves are no different than a wreck that occurred across the median on the other direction.  You see the topic pop up and down the raft, depending on the discussions underway, but unless you go in to look, it shouldn’t affect your journey (s).

If you do go in and look and are offended, then who is to blame for that ?  Its like going down the hall into a cafeteria when there is obviously a food fight in progress, yet one enters and still complains when their good clothes get messed up, blaming the fighters, instead of self for entering in the first place when there is another cafeteria right next door where people are eating peacefully.  In an environment where adult behaviour is expected, one is assumed to be responsible for their own actions.  So now the offended takes their feelings back into their lane and slows down everyone else traveling the way they were in the first place by making comments about how offended they were for looking.

That not withstanding, it really pisses me off when the fighters take it outside and keep it going in the nice peaceful places.  I can't blame the hate and backlash towards the poly threads for that.  But it also pisses me off when hyperbole police (and there are a few), who rarely participate, come in and start judging, while offering very little else.  And the one worders who rarely take any stands either, yet still complain.  The regulars still seem to sort it out and keep something going.  I don't mind when regulars call each other out.  That's fair to me, in my view.  They are engaged on a regular basis and have some standing.   

But let’s also remember that politics is hyperbolical and full of conjecture because of its very nature.  It involves analogies, comparisons and references that are oblique to the casual onlooker.  Some may even appear mean.  But when taken in the context of long drawn out discussions, some of which have been going on for years with a small group of regulars talking around others, they make sense.  I will offer myself up as an example. 

After being dogged for half a page about not accepting an answer to a question, rather than telling them what to do with their self in a long winded, foul mouth laden rant, I decided to cut to the chase using a very old line uttered by Hillary Clinton that over the years this person has come to know that I have had enough and to let it go.  I told her to go bake some cookies.  While that may have offended people who stumbled in and saw a misogynist remark, in the context of what was really going on it was appropriate to the person it was directed at based upon a very long history.  It was a political reference, not a misogynist one.  It was within the confines of a poly thread.  It was not taken outside.  Plus in this case, I would never direct it at anyone else but the person I directed it at.  If I used that with someone else without that history, sure it could very easily and legitimately be termed as misogynist.

Let’s also remember that when doing more than cutting and pasting, using someone else’s thought to make a case, using one’s own thoughts and paraphrasing takes on some risks.  When trying to state a case by offering up one’s own views, exaggerations while not advised, do have some validity in making cases to illustrate the ridiculousness of certain positions.  The risk is that the exaggeration will be accepted for the sake of making a point.  An exaggeration without support or explanation following it is not a wise choice. 

These discussions do become heated, passionate and emotional at times because people have skin in the game and are making cases based upon that.  The feedback, brush back, and counterpoints offered can go either way.  They can calm someone down and get them to withdraw and regroup or they can make matters worse depending on the mood of the receiver.  You don’t know unless you try.  Politics is not a cute, warm and cuddly matter.  It takes guts and thick skin.  It takes an understanding of history of both the subject and those discussing the subject.  One can say it doesn’t have to be that way and be correct, but in reality it most often is.  The rubberneckers who drop in often miss the reconciliations that happen because what draws them in, a rapidly changing raft, isn’t.  They just assume that its always a wreck in there.

Clearly the poly threads are going to keep on as long as we have the freedom to create new topics.  But they do serve a purpose as long as that purpose is contained within.  Real thoughts and information are shared leading to increased awareness, learning and some minds actually being changed now and then.  There is also a lot of dead horse beating going on as well.  Some of it is real and some of it is perceived, primarily because of staunch partisan positions that refuse to accept anything different as valid.

I am guilty of dead horse beating.  I am not the only one.  But I have decided to join dead horse beaters anonymous and try and do something about it so I don’t twist an ankle kicking the horse injuring myself needlessly.  People with a propensity towards idiocy will always find a place to show it.  But where would you rather see it ?  Ahead of you slowing it down or the other side of the road where you don’t have to see it ?  Being tolerant of the stuff that isn’t in your way as you motor through the raft, is a good thing.

Want to come in and play ?  Do so at your own risk.  And do not be offended when you see blood spilled occasionally.  Its like jumping in at the deep end of the pool, there is no wading, but I think that I can speak for a couple at least, that the more the merrier.  Just don’t get upset if your thoughts are not received as you hoped.  Or views expressed challenge your entire being.  It is what it is.  There is a place for everyone and everything if this is accepted before jumping in.  They are outlets for venting and ranting.  Better there than somewhere else.  Respect the people who participate in there when they come out as long as they don’t bring that part with them into the regular traffic lanes and drive responsibly.  Don’t hate them for racing on the race track as long as that is the only place.  It is appropriate.  Race car drivers do get in trouble when they drive like they are racing on the regular roads as they should.  They know how to compartmentalize.  Otherwise, they would be locked up for bad behaviour.  Respect the ones who can slow down and drive appropriately.  Race tracks are separate entities.  People hate car racing because they think it is senseless.  It does have a real purpose and value.  Good things do come from racing that benefit everyone else in shared learning and technology.  Tire design affects nearly everyone for example.

And lastly remember that views expressed are not necessarily beliefs, they are often positions taken just for the sake of debate.  Often times debaters are given positions that they may not agree with, but due to the nature of things they must defend nonetheless.  It is a skill that is required, along with the risk that is required in debating.  Anyone who has participated in organized debating knows this to be true.  This is lost on many casual observers.  Politics, while a car racing analogy may be valid, is not going around a simple oval.  It is racing on a figure 8 track, where crashes happen at the intersection.  The drivers know the risks, or at least should.

Don’t let activity on the raft draw you in if you know you will be offended.  It’s a choice, but don’t blame others for the choice you made.