I must agree with this.
Among other things, venom is rarely persuasive. Usually it puts people on the defensive and makes them even more determined to stick to their present viewpoint.
I have seen so much unpleasantness on both sides that sometimes it's hard to even visit this place anymore. But the easy-reading presentation of the news from millions of sources keeps me coming back, because there is truly no easier way to stay informed.
D
I have to wonder if either of you understood me to have directed your comments to me in such a manner. I was the first to note and to decry the behavior on this thread. I recognized immediately what had happened here, as it's happened to me as well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/977649/posts It happened on two of my constructive original threads. I hadn't even posted my ping list, and the disrupters had already gone to work. Two McClintock haters had slipped in between number 1 and number 4. Now that was fast! They couldn't have had time to have read it, which meant they had to be on auto-attack mode. And, as it turned out, one of the disrupters hit both threads early. Here he is at my second thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/983247/posts?page=4#4 I described this behavior, to another who decrid, it thusly:
Picture 'em lurking the forum, their primitive senses keenly awaiting the next whiff of McClintock supporters. Then they spring to deliver their next standard mindless attacks. This was at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/977649/posts?page=44#44 So, DD, there are a few people, if you peruse many of the threads, who do this regularly. You may have chosen to avoid much here at FR precisely because of such activity. That's why they are known as disrupters. You have reacted to their behavior in disgust. Do you really want to get angry at those who choose to stay around and defend against their onslaught? Or do you choose to take a neutral sounding position "I have seen so much unpleasantness on both sides..." in the hopes they won't attack you too? Your ability to be informed has been attacked by all this, "...that sometimes it's hard to even visit this place anymore" so you really have been targetted, just not personally.
So, DD and Mr. B., please make an effort to make a distinction between the combatants. You are Americans, not Europeans. ;)