When I used the term kook and Nazi, it was a general reference to the extremists that are leaders in the environmentalist groups like the Earth First people who use domestic terrorism to make their points. Or some of the movers and shakers in the Sierra Club who have historically attempted to close public lands to every use that they personally dissaprove of. I speak to the radicals of PETA who also use forms of domestic terrorism to make a political statement. I would further point to some of the actions taken by Green Peace. To that end I stand by what I said. Any person who would spike a tree and kill or maim an innocent person trying to feed his family for a political point IS akin to a Nazi, kook or worse.... Ossama Bin Ladden! If that opinion offends some, too damn bad!
Please, get it through your heads that I used the inflamatory labels to referrence these terrible examples of people, NOT you guys who voiced a legitimate concern about my flying practice.
I understand, and thanks for explaining further. To explain myself further, nuance is a challenge to get across in writing. Many of us do it less than masterfully. There is also the issue of how folks read what others have written, and how we start reading intentions into what's written that may not have really been intended by the writer, and so forth. I believe that there are ways to write on forums that at least reduce the risk of confusion that leads to high noise factor as well as reducing the risk of disenranchising other forum members. I still maintain that you could have made all your points that were truly relevant to this thread and the other posters w/o going to the kooks and nazis, and that acarey could have made his points w/o the references to the polarizing celebrities and politicians. IME, these kinds of references not only add little to the communication value of discussions, they add inflammatory value. I believe I saw it here. I took no personal offense, but I still spoke up as I value a board where the signal:noise ratio is high, and where we don't have folks bailing from contributing due to concerns over tone. We have folks from many cultures joining in here, and I know that some are used to more rough-and-tumble than others. I had to learn to dial my tendency to "debate to think" back a bit when I moved to WA from MA, as I realized I was getting folks upset at work. I decided it was not worth it, and that there were other strategies for getting good critical thinking going in the workplace. FWIW, I will reiterate that I end up having folks PM me thanks for calling out what can come across as personal attacks (and yes, comparing someone's language ot polarizing personalities, or using terms like "nazis and kooks" to describe behaviors that seem awfully close to what other posters are exhibiting skate at least very close to that edge). All I'm doing here is inviting folks to think about what they really want to accomplish on the board, and whether they are currently doing it.
Humble suggestion: if you have a rant about earth firsters or whoever which does not relate directly to the folks your talking with regarding a divisive topic, try opening a separate thread about it if you really feel the need to get it out of your skin.
