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Any idea how -you- appear to an onlooker (me)?
Can you please re-examine what I wrote?
I said I've done my best to "show you how -it- might look" not "how -you- might look":
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I've already done my best to show you how it might appear to an onlooker.
"It" refers to the ideas being discussed. That means I'm taking issue with what someone wrote, not with them, personally. Here's the paragraph that sentence was a part of:
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I do want to make it clear that I don't think you're a bad guy, or anything like that at all. I just don't think you fully realize what you're saying, and the -implications- of what it means. But as I say, I'm going to have to leave it there, as I've already done my best to show you how it might appear to an onlooker. It's not a pretty picture.
Isn't it clear that I'm taking issue with what is being said rather than the -person- who is saying it in the above paragraph? I hope so, because I can't make it any clearer.
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Just state your case.
I thought that's what I -was- doing.
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I might even agree with some of your points, but all the "my friend"
I consider anyone I chat with here to be my friend. Naturally, being friends does not mean that you are always going to see eye-to-eye, but I don't think any the less of someone just because their ideas don't happen to match mine. I read what everyone has to say here, because their ideas could be better than the ones I have, and I'm always on the lookout for better ideas.
So when I use the phrase "my friend," I mean it. If it sounds insincere to you, well, I can't help that. I type the way I talk, for better or for worse.
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and the "you frighten me" stuff
Well, how do -you- know he wasn't frightening me? That's rather taking a liberty on your part, don't you think?
I don't say anything I don't mean. And anyone who believes that bad guys are any less deserving of justice than good guys are really -does- frighten me, or at least, their support of such an idea does. I'm not just saying "you frighten me" for the sake of saying it, if -that's- what you thought. If you think it's a phrase I use often, or throw around lightly, please go back and read any/all of my other posts and you'll discover just how seldom I make use of it.
I won't pretend it's not satisfying to see bad things happen to bad people. But if a pickpocket loses his own wallet, then he's no less deserving of having it returned than you or I are if you profess to believe in "justice." Sure, everyone laughs when a car thief has his car stolen, but that doesn't mean that a theft hasn't taken place.
That's what makes justice so difficult: if you really believe in it, you have to be willing to apply it to those people you -don't- like, just as you would to people you do. So while I might understand the emotional appeal of "playing favorites," I -am- genuinely frightened by people who think it's a good idea.
That doesn't mean I think that someone who frightens me with such an idea is a terrible person. Only that they may not have thought through the implications of such a belief as thoroughly and completely as they might. And sometimes, when you repeat back to other people what they've told you, they re-examine what they've said, what they were thinking when they said it, and they change their minds (it's happened to me, too).
That's how both people and ideas improve.
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makes you look condescending and passive aggressive. That's not pretty either.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but with so many different people and viewpoints here on the boards, I don't think I stand a chance of being able to please everyone with what I write, and that includes you, too. I guess I can't always expect to speak my mind and be well-liked at the same time, so if I have to choose between the two, I'll choose the former, "pretty" or otherwise.
If nothing else, I hope that you might consider my ideas to be worthy, even if you don't consider the person presenting them to be so. However, as I pointed out at the beginning of my post, it was the -ideas- being expressed that I was taking exception to, -not- the poster expressing them. I hope that's clearer to you now, and I hope you're willing to extend to me the same courtesy.
