miamizsun wrote: 
We're in a war against each other.

there's a war on people

 Zep wrote: 



Amen! No better way to say it.

When I saw this thread pop up and clicked in before anyone had responded and saw the opening statement and author, I saw a thread started as nothing more than a place to bash partisans.  The title is partisan.  The title is a talking point designed to divide, not join or bring people together or foster conversation towards those ends.

Any attempts at something different other than agreeing with the openning statement were doomed from the beginning.

Glad I kept my nose out of here upon backscrolling since my first look yesterday morning.

 Rod wrote: 
Walmart offers generic birth control pills for $9. no insurance needed.

 Rod wrote: 

For what it's worth (and I know that ain't much) and to get back on topic, I do believe for lack of a better term, there is a war on women. Why are old white men the ones making the rules when it comes to women's reproductive rights? You can damn well bet if men were the ones who got pregnant, Walmart would have specials like "Abortion Fridays" and it would all be paid for, no probes, no questions asked. Of course, all birth control would be covered by insurance too.

I mean, it's 2012 and women are still not getting equal pay for equal work. Who's calling the shots? We all know that answer.

 Zep wrote:

 
Did you get ahold of Bud and get him to approve my 365/24/7 plan?
 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
That's what I'm thinking. Spew leads to more spew. Where does it end? When people drift away? No. 

FWIW I hate to see people get DD'ed. They all came here, found something, stuck around — and crossed a line. I'd prefer that their "punishment" be that they learn sumpin'.
 
I'm not saying you can't spew.. just keep it in the ballpark. 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 



Indeed. Thanks.

 MsJudi wrote: 
:wrysmileemoticonthingy:

For the little bit it is worth, I read through all two pages of this thread and actually liked (almost) all I read.
I really do appreciate the voice of reason and I actually think most of you here do too and are coming at this from different angles but the passion is the same and that makes me feel good.

.. it made me even think back to the beginning when I first discovered this place, and this is probably totally skewed by own personal perspective, but back then RP was my first experience of the internet. It was pre-FB, it was even pre-blog. In fact there was stuff all on the internet where the kind of free and open discourse of RP was going on. I found it extremely liberating. You could say stuff. All kinds of stuff. You could even adopt personas or run with a theme, jump into vats of chocolate and squaff scallops, steal the keys to the moonbats mobile from BHD's cleavage and etc. etc. It was bloody marvellous. But it was kind of a guilty pleasure. None of my friends in Germany could relate to it and thought the internet, and everything associated with it, was intrinsically sick. It was the domain of child-porn and stalkers and they looked at me askance when I talked of this amazing new radio station I'd discovered. So I ended up keeping it to myself and there was a pretty strict delineation in my mind between real life and the internet..

.. and then it matured. After a while, you do kind of get to know people here. Everyone carries their own special signature. They way they talk, the things they say. It got to the point that I could pick people pretty quickly when they went incognito and entered here under another pseuonym. Cos, in the end, you are you. And you will always be you. And I still see this place as pretty much a forerunner of internet usage. It is evolving, and it is now becoming a mainstream form of communication. The downside is that those heady days of liberation from social mores are gone. The upside is that it is now more "real" and you will be held accountable for what you say.  Fun as the old days were, I actually really appreciate the more mature RP. This is no longer a place where you can just spew. People here know each other. We expect and deserve more than just 2D black and white discourse. And I get a really good buzz when people like Islander and Winter call people out on their mode of delivery.

Ok, so this makes the whole place more adult, and less of a playground than it used to be (though there is time for that too, I guess) but that loss is easily made up for by the salience that is gained.

I have a lot of respect for everyone here that holds others to a certain standard of delivery. I also still see this place here as a forum for all sides of whatever spectrum is involved. I actually welcome the opportunity to discuss things with people who hold views that are totally opposite to my own. But I do expect a certain level of debate. It is more than simple decorum. I expect people to respect each other, no matter where they are coming from. People are complex, and the myopic branding of issues and people into black and white is for me like something from back in the early days of the internet, where you could say what you wanted and were never held accountable. Like in kindergarten.

Woa. Woa! Deep Breath please peeps. Everyone feels passionately right now, but adding to it is some serious planetary Mal going on... don't fuel yourselves into anger. You'll just all feel shitty tomorrow.

2¢. I shaddup now.  

 MsJudi wrote: 

 hippiechick wrote:
But you're not having a conversation. That is the whole point. You're hiding behind posted links and casting wild statements. Link re-posting is furthering an agenda. They're not your words at all. 

There may very well be a war on women, or if not a war, then a general move to roll back reproductive rights. I don't necessarily disagree with that. 

It's worse over in the Mitt Romney forum, where you're just reposting the trash others are saying about him on the Internet. That's when RP becomes a toxic waste dump. I would expect the trashier blogs to bash Obama and/or Romney, but RP is not a trashy blog.
 

 2cats wrote: 
Apologies, I didn't mean to imply that I was leaving RP... I'm NOT, I will simply abandon my friendship with HP, as that would appear to be her desire.

 MsJudi wrote: 
Judi, NO.

 JrzyTmata wrote: 
Absolutely not, but Deni wants me, evidently, to preform things upon myself that I've never tried.

 MsJudi wrote: 
you're gonna let someone run you off?

Ok, then. I've been asked privately to fuck off, and I believe I will. As an FYI, it's a permanent condition.

 hippiechick wrote: 
All?

No, just everyone except you.

Why do you spew such hatred towards everyone?