[mkjessup]

Again, please resist the temptation to take personal offense -- I was right there with you for decades...

Pretty hard not to take it personal when you and your ilk (and your 'elk') make such posts with such personally aimed vitriol (and if you need examples, you need only review your own posts or if unable to do so, I can go back and quote you verbatim), you Defenders of the Conservative Faith(c) (I think I'm going to copyright that phrase) come roaring into threads like this with your self righteous "I told you so" comments, your self assured judgmental conclusions that this-FReeper or that-FReeper voted for thus-and-so, or said this or that, based upon whatever motives or intents you randomly assign to those FReepers who have (in your not-so-humble opinions) warranted your purist wrath, so don't hand me that crap about "nothing personal FRiend" because that dog won't hunt.

You are far too eager to assign the worst of motives to your fellow FReepers when the fact is that you are NOT mind readers, you do not have the gift of divining the contents of another's mind or soul.

Now as for this deal about voting 'for' or 'against' someone, simple logic dictates that if you have two candidates, and you cast your vote for 'candidate 1' that by default, you have voted AGAINST 'candidate 2', and vice versa. And it also stands to reason that if (as in 2012) a potential vote that was NOT cast for the Republican ticket, resulted in NOT nullifying a vote that was cast for the 'RAT ticket. It's nothing but a numbers game, if Obama ended up with 'x' number of votes in 2012, if you factor in the total number of votes that were NOT cast for Romney, you end up with the equation of 'x' + 'number of votes not cast' which effectively increased the margin of victory for Obama. It's not rocket science.

You can twist words into all sorts of pretzel-like pseudo logic, but you cannot escape the mathematical truth of the formula I have just described for you.

But to return to the original "don't take it personal" comment of yours, I do exclude EV from my observations of the type and tenor of the comments from 'you and your elk' (that's just some subtle humor there in case you didn't get it the first time), because Eternal Vigilance has always conducted himself as a gentleman without any accusatory rancor directed at others.

The rest of you Defenders of the Conservative Faith would do well to emulate him.

[Finny]

Do cut and paste examples of “vitriol” in my posts.

[Finny]

Again, rereading your post, MKJ, back up your claims by posting examples of "vitriol" in my posts to you.

Do it. Right now -- go through all my posts to you on this thread and find the words that you perceive as "vitriol." Prove your accusation.

[Finny]

You are far too eager to assign the worst of motives to your fellow FReepers ...

Prove it. Cut and paste the words in my posts here that "assign the worst of motives" to fellow FReepers. I can think of one post of mine that could be interpreted that way, but it wasn't initially addressed to you, it was to a different FReeper and you were pinged. And at that, again, it is rather like a equating anger with hatred -- the two are very different from each other, but many times people think that if someone is angry at them, then that someone "hates" them. And they are badly mistaken in thinking so 99 percent of the time. I have been guilty of it as much as anyone.

Do you equate thinking that someone is misguided, with thinking that someone is acting on "the worst of motives"?

[Finny]

Come on, MK -- I'm still waiting for you to provide some evidence of your charge that I, finny, posted "vitriol" and "assign(ed) the worst of motives to fellow FReepers" in my posts on this thread.

You have insulted me and made a pretty ugly charge against me. Now BACK IT UP with evidence. It should be easy for you to do -- so DO IT.

Or if you have honor, ask the moderator to delete your post #159 in which you make absolutely false and hostile allegations against me.

Actions speak louder than words, MKJ.

[Finny]

This guy’s post #159 — very, very disappointing and disillusioning.

[EternalVigilance]

She was reaching out to you with her comment, admitting that she used to think exactly the same way.

That’s an olive branch, man.

Pretty mean, disproportionate response on your part, IMO.