I think it's a good idea to move the
politics to another board.
I'm very political (hate shrub with a passion)
and read a lot of political blogs.
but when i am in this neighborhood i'm looking
for something else, not politics.
i think the political board ought to focus
more on hobby-related issues, given the overall
purpose of the site.
Because this is an election year and some members want to vigorously debate the suitability of the candidates, we are creating a place of your own where you can do that.
This does not mean that all political discussions are forbidden from this board (National board). I do not oppose political discussion on this or any of the boards, because there are many political issues that affect our community, and you never know when someone will make a comment on one of those threads that makes the correlation. But, if you want to post something like "Bush is Finished!," then it's a safe bet that it should go on the Political board. 
I can move threads from one board to another, so, if you are unsure of where to post your message, do your best, and I will move it if it I feel it should be moved.
I hope this helps make TER a more useful place for everyone. Check the index page of the Discussion Area for the board later tonight or tomorrow.
Girl Next Door
Moderator
-- Modified on 3/25/2004 7:35:33 PM
During the next 8 months, the Political Forum will generate MORE posts than the General Discussion Forum by a ratio of 2:1.
It will go down slightly after the election, but will remain high.
You may have to change the site name to: The Political Review 
Warm regards,
TET
The political board will die out soon, without a captive audience.
Time will tell
Michelle, I believe the wounded most likely will be Bush, Cheney, and Rummy. Do you REALLY want to provide for those three?
:P
TET
-- Modified on 3/25/2004 8:58:48 PM
Careful about those Florida keys. You may summon the spirits of Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo
Imagine Tricky Dick and Pat having sex in the Rose Garden!
TET
Its Iron Chef NetMichelle here, and she is savoring the secret ingrediant Nixon with (gasp) WET Platinum, which is a premium lubricant...Nixon is flashing a peace sign, its all good!
If I didn't follow your posts regularly, I'd swear that you were still enjoying the residual effects of some really good chemicals. (lol) You go girl!!!
In sex shops. Chemistry in action.
I think it's a good idea to move the
politics to another board.
I'm very political (hate shrub with a passion)
and read a lot of political blogs.
but when i am in this neighborhood i'm looking
for something else, not politics.
i think the political board ought to focus
more on hobby-related issues, given the overall
purpose of the site.
GND, this is arguably the best thing that has ever happened to the national board.
Although I have lots of political views, I was one of the many here that was just getting burned out by it all and stopped stopping by.
My biggest frustration wasn't that there were lots of political threads, it was that so many non-political threads were being taken over mid-stream by unrelated political zealotry. One minute I'm consumed in fantasy about something really hot some provider's said (you know who you are!), and suddenly the next reply is about the trilateral commission.
If I've got Sedona, Ci Ci, NetMichelle, and NOSC all in my imaginary hot-tub of boiling baby-oil, references to Cheney, Sadam, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Kerry, Osama, are NOT "value-additive" to the overall experience! Oh, and references to bushes are OK, but not to Bush.
I'd like to propose a "gentleperson's agreement" among all of us, that we agree to a strict political interpretation for this board--that is, we agree that a political topic has to be truly germane to the hobby in order to be posted here, as opposed to trying to come up with tenuous, silly connections between the political topic and hobbying. We shouldn't leave GND having to do all the work of policing this, we ought to be able to it ourselves. Thoughts?
We thoroughly enjoyed seeing these pseudo conservatives here expose themselves in public! Now, nobody sees the "intellect" of these rightwing nuts!!!!!!
I will come over occasionally to read.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 3:22:42 AM
is to actually try to change each other's thinking a little. Yeah, I know, it seems impossible - he's a dyed-in-the-wool conservative/liberal, and he'll never change. But if you make even an incremental shift in the other guy's thinking, you've won.
Sinking to the level of name-calling just alienates the other guy, and does nothing to shift his view.
If you really want to raise the maturity level of your political discussions, try to find common ground in your viewpoints, respect each other's right to their views, and work from there.
JV's one of my all time favorite moderates, and I couldn't agree more.
I enjoy political debate because it broadens my perspective, and helps me refine my own thinking. I want to be able to clearly elocute both sides of an argument, and understand the character of the spectrum--the shades of gray, before forming an opinion. The research required to gain that understanding almost always moderates my view, but refines it into a more "unified" picture of the problem.
Almost none of the debates that occur here help me in those goals. Simply saying "Clarke is a poopy butt," "No, Bush is a poopy-but" doesn't help me refine my own thinking, and thus I don't participate.
Frankly, Bribite's thinking will change as soon as he's dead, and not before. I actually would not be averse to changing his thinking, but I've got better things to do than to spend the rest of my life in a jail cell for changing his thinking.
It's this hatred (coming from both sides) that is repugnant to those of us in the middle.
Neither side will ever convince me as long as they are maintaining the insults.
I am simply suggesting that the world would be a better place were Bribite absent from it. I certainly would have no intention of doing anything about that, nor would I wish anyone ELSE do anything about it. It's simply an observation.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 11:10:25 AM
Personally I have found that my sperm bro status w/bribri make me less inclined to diss him. He's just a guy with similar tastes to mine who got off the track a bit...
Perhaps if other hobbyist compared review lists, more common ground could be found...
sdstud, that's a terible thing to say. Maybe Bribite thinks the world would be a better place without you! As for me, I want you both around. If everyone thought the exact same way, the world would be a good deal worse off. People who advocate sensory deprivation and mind control want everbody to think according to the "program." Do you remember a (great) movie called "A Clockwork Orange?"
"There's no point. The goal has ALWAYS been to influence the folks in the middle"
But it doesn't work. The vitriolic divisiveness that characterizes the political dialog expressed here don't influence the middle.
Let's say I'm pro-issue-X and you're pro-issue-Y. My shouting "Y is the work of Lucifer, X is the only right answer" does nothing to win over the middle.
But suppose instead, I said "I understand and agree with many of the principles that underlie Y. Let me explain X in inclusive terms that help reconcile X with those underlying principles. In so doing, I can show you how supporting X is actually more consistent with your value system than supporting Y." Now that is the kind of dialog that consistently wins over the middle.
The challenge is that in order to do that, I have to both understand and respect Y-believers and their beliefs. All that understanding has just become too much like work, so modern politics, on this board and in reality, has simply become "attack attack attack... Never, ever acknowledge the legitimacy of you're opponent's views." It's lazy and it does nothing to influence the middle. Winning over the middle is hard work and no one seems to think it's worth doing any more.
GND, I think that you are not a "GIRL", but a wise woman. A politics board seems to me to be a hell of a good idea.
Three things in life tend to generate vigorous emotions. TER posts seem little concerned with one of them, religion. But the other two, politics and sex, generate enough heat to make up for that. Sex certainly is important, as is, or are, politics. But sex is sex and politics is politics and never the twin should meet.
Frankly, this new board just creates a redundant forum with any number of other political forums, and I expect that it will quickly fizzle from disinterest. Certainly I have no interest in it.
It is completely wrong to assume that these debates are about me persuading Bribite, or vice versa. Even someone as obtuse as he surely realizes that he's not going to change my mind, and I certainly realize I'm not going to change his mind (being the calcified microscopic object that it is).
The goal of these discussions (at least for me) has always been to inform and influence the percentage of folks in the middle, who do not live and breathe the political issues, and clearly that audience will be lacking in a board specifically devoted to political discussions.
I recognize that a critical mass of people has spoken, and asked for these discussions to be segregated away from the general discussion forum, and as I recognize that we live in a democracy, I am prepared to acquiesce to the majority view, and no longer post on any political subjects. Although I will continue to RESPOND to any political posts that DO appear on the general discussion board, if only to assure that the screeds from the opposing side don't stand unopposed. I only hope that unwillingness to engage in these discussions by the majority of the posters here is not reflective of an overall degree of apathy toward this subject among the general populace. As the decision facing our nation has never been more stark and more important to our future.
I'll let others decide for themselves what that is, but will offer these comments based on my own observations of the last several months.
SDS, you are obviously a smart guy, but you have become consumed by your obsession with certain individuals on this board, as well as political figures with whom you disagree. This obsession is greatly affecting your perspective and causing your emotions to get the best of you.
IMHO, it's time to step back and take a deep breath and relax. Why is it so important to you what other's think? Who cares? You obviously don't respect their intellect or their opinions, so why do you care what they think? But in the process of hating these individuals, you've become the person you claim them to be- close-minded, able to see only one POV, disrespectful and filled with hate.
This board, and hopefully the new Political Board, should first be about friendly give and take. These people are not your enemies. They are entitled to their ideas, just as you are entitled to yours. Seeing theirs on the board shouldn't set you off like a firecracker.
You've probably posted more times in the last 3 months than anybody else on this board, but frankly, you've become a one-trick pony. Why don't you use your intellect and surprise us once in a while with your insight on other subjects?
Your outright rejection of a Political Board, despite your preoccupation with politics, shows that none of your posts were really about an exchange of ideas, but rather were you using this forum as a captive audience for your personal opinions. I'd like to suggest you rejoin this community in the spirit that it is supposed to represent and treat your fellow posters with the respect you would like to be shown.
And please don't be a cliche and dash-off another hate-filled invective because you think someone challenged you- you're too smart to continue communicating like that and it serves no purpose other than to alienate people.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 6:56:46 PM
First of all, there is only one other poster on this board whom I truly despise - although he has used multiple handles so it may seem like more. I will admit to hating this individual, it would be a silly for me to claim otherwise. But this individual is opposed to all of the values that I hold dear, and in fact, it is entirely accurate to claim that I view this individual as an enemy. I admit that he is, and I'm entirely comfortable in that view. He is also an enemy of the ideals that make this country great, although, fortunately, he's too insignificant to have any importance in that role. But that doesn't preclude my despising him because of the hateful individual that he is.
2nd of all, it is EXTRAORDINARILY important that more people think Bush is worthy of being voted out of office than in being retained. I don't actually give a damn what anyone here whom I might not actually know thinks about me personally. But I care an awful lot about what people think about this issue, and I will admit to being truly distressed that a very significant element of the populace does not seem to understand that they are being manipulated and lied to about matters affecting the safety and security of this nation. For example, why is it that the Bush administration has now devoted an EXTENSIVE amount of effort among the heads of State, Defense, and the National Security Advisor's office into discrediting Richard Clarke, yet nearly NO effort whatsoever is being devoted to flushing out the Administration official who committed TREASON in outing Victoria Plame from a deep cover CIA position, in order to punish her and her husband Joseph Wilson, who also criticized this administration? If The Bush administration was one tenth as zealous in assassinating Al Qaida leaders as they are in assassinating the character of anyone who criticizes them and their record, Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri would clearly be dead on slabs by now. Of course, Kerry is by no means perfect. But I do not believe that I am overstating it when I contend that Bush is the most disastrous President since Warren Harding.
3rd, you say I am obsessed with these debates. Perhaps, but I would prefer to call it extremely focused. Certainly, the possible issues associated with escort/client interactions that are the normal subject matter of this board DO seem insignificant to me in comparison to the issue of who and how the leadership of the free world is carried out.
And finally, my reason for rejecting the Political Discussion Board is that it seems quite clear to me that the purpose of such a board is to segregate these conversations from the general audience. My entire purpose of these posts is to involve the general audience. I don't care in the slightest, nor do I actually have the slightest expectation of ever changing the minds of the half-dozen or so posters I've been sparring with. It has NEVER been about that. It HAS been about trying to influence others, either by reasoned argument, OR by making it completely obvious how UNREASONED the opposing argument is. To the extent that I've gotten sidetracked in screeds against Bribite, I acknowledge that I've actually been working at cross purposes with this. But certainly, the ONLY reason I have ever been doing these posts is for the GENERAL audience of the General Discussion Board. I don't have anything fundamental against any Political Discussion forum, either here or elsewhere. I simply acknowledge the obvious fact that those forums are not the ones where the audience I am targetting resides. Hence, I won't bother with them. I never denied nor misrepresented my purpose on these political threads. It's about persuading those who could possibly be persuaded. The current political climate is entirely too polarized to try to change the minds of those on the opposite pole. It's all about trying to influence the small slice of the uncommitted in the middle, and that opportunity is effectively negated by being thrust into a separate forum.
And incidentally, you have no idea who I am, or what my larger purpose is. I would tell you point blank that my intent in THIS forum has been to try out approaches to this debate among this audience, as an early stage audition in front of a set of very uninhibited critics of all political stripes, before taking those approaches that better withstand the crucible of opposition here, into some broader and far more significant forays in the national media. Obviously, the mutual hatefest I've had with bribite is not part of that, but the rest of it certainly is. That being said, the population of this forum has clearly rejected being used in this manner, so I'll need to find another, equally non-mainstream venue to de-bug these approaches to the debate before unveiling them in the broader media.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 2:48:53 PM
I gave you a lot of leeway. This is pretty tolerant and open-minded group, for the most part, and you have abused our hospitality and insulted us (at least, me). Buh-bye.
I wouldn't have posted it here if I wasn't serious about communicating it in this forum. This should be considered to be analogous to opening a play off Broadway, and then later trying to bring it to Broadway. The fact that the Off-Broadway audience is often MORE savvy than the broader audience in many cases is responsible for superior art being created. It's not any less worthy than the subsequent foray onto Broadway, and in fact, is arguably more-so. The analogy is that if a political position can play here, it can play in the mainstream, while the reverse might not always be true.
Surely YOU wouldn't be so arrogant as to believe that any theme of discussion that occurred here first could not also be ready to be brought out in front of a more mainstream audience?
As I said, I posted it on this forum because of a few specific characteristics of this audience:
a) There is MORE openmindedness and willingness to buck authority
b) There is somewhat of a more moderate social bias, and IMHO, some pretty strong, creative, independent thinkers present
c) and there clearly IS a broad diversity of backgrounds and opinions.
You seem to think that my last post was meant to belittle this audience. That was certainly NOT the case, and if anything, it was quite the OPPOSITE of why I was posting on this forum. It's because I thought HIGHLY of this audience, NOT that I thought somehow less of it.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 4:57:34 PM
So, go already.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 5:05:58 PM
There you go again!
It is obvious to me when I read your posts that you are a very intelligent person. And from what I remember from past posts, you have been successful in life. I am one of the moderates of whom you spoke in your post. I am not apathetic and I am paying attention to the information that comes forth during the current presidential election cycle. I think that you are wrong to feel that a political discussion board will wither from lack of use. While I do not fully agree with either people of your political bent or with the viewpoints expressed by people like Bribite, I sometimes like reading the viewpoints that all of you put forward. I am much more likely to do reading and occasional posting on a politics board than I ever will again on the Porn Star board, for example. I think that people like you and Bribite are patriots who love your country, that is obvious to me from reading your posts, you simply disagree about the best direction that the country should take as it faces the uncertainty of future challenges, such is how life works, you would not be the living, thinking human being that you are if you did not hold forth your views about where the leadership needs to take the country with passion. But please realize that moderates have passionately held views also, this is the reason why we cling so violently to the center, we have seen and feel deeply that it IS the best course that we and the country can take. I hope that you would reconsider your position about the political board, I look forward to you initiating posts there, as I look forward to people like Bribite initiating post on that board. I also hope that both you and Bribite would reconsider how you view and write of each other. Can either of you, for a moment entertain the possibility that you may be very much alike on 85%+ of the things that you do in life? Both of you have bonafide passion which you are not shy about displaying. Both of you are very committed to views that you hold dear, be it they are 180 degrees opposed. I hope that you and Bribite start battling based upon the power of your ideas and cease form writing anything that can be even remotely considered a personal attack. As much as it is possible to be cynical about politics sometimes, I have seen, and hold a steadfast view that the winners in each political generation are the people who can clearly articulate powerful ideas that touch a listener's or a reader's soul.
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 5:56:35 PM
-- Modified on 3/26/2004 5:59:56 PM
I say give him his OWN forum so he can ramble his boring bullshit till the cow's come home. GEEZ, does this guy EVER stop?
WE......DON'T.......CARE!!!!!!