What to do about Religion and Politics?

[Jarhead0331]

OK...for the time being, I have added a feature that permits members to ignore boards that they do not wish to see. So if you decide to ignore the R&P board, the board and posts should be hidden.

Anyone want to give it a shot and come back to report if it works with the index?

[ArizonaTank]

OK...for the time being, I have added a feature that permits members to ignore boards that they do not wish to see. So if you decide to ignore the R&P board, the board and posts should be hidden.

Anyone want to give it a shot and come back to report if it works with the index?

I used it...will let you know how it works.

[al_infierno]

Works like a charm for the "Recent Posts" index, but interestingly it doesn't seem to actually remove/ignore the board and posts itself from the forum.  That's a perfect solution in my mind, but not sure if others wanted to be able to block it from view entirely.

[Sir Slash]

Can we choose to ignore members instead? JUST KIDDING!  ;D  I for one do plan to spend less time at R&P. Seems pointless to just argue. That I can get from the Wife.  :hug:

[Father Ted]

Keep it as it is would be my vote.  I appreciate the opportunity to see how people think about such stuff.  For the most part  I'm in the contrary position to everyone else around here, but I like to understand what those positions are.

[SirAndrewD]

I feel like we lost a lot of valuable contributors to this forum because of it. 

I honestly like everyone here, so when someone leaves, and they generally express because they feel that the site is extremely right wing, to the point of it being uncomfortable, it's painful. 

I respect your opinions even if I don't agree with them, but I feel some of the R&P topics and threads don't respect ideas that are left of center.   I've said several times I'm, politically a Republican and have been for my life.  I'm voting Democrat this year but I voted for Johnson in 2016.  I don't particularly agree with the left, but I don't demonize it and understand that both sides have a lot of right and wrong. 

There's a lot of what we historians call "The Erosion of the Middle" here.  And trust me, I've seen it from leftist people too.   I've literally lost friends on the left since 2016...in VERY ugly fashions.  Not forum friends, actual personal IRL friends.  I lost them because I did things like not vote for Clinton, and defend some stuff on the right. 

So, yeah, I'm one of the votes for shut it down.  I'll keep participating in it if it's here and I understand why people want it.  But, I feel we've lost a lot more than we've gained.   The silence from some of the people that are gone is deafening.

[jamus34]

I feel like we lost a lot of valuable contributors to this forum because of it. 

I honestly like everyone here, so when someone leaves, and they generally express because they feel that the site is extremely right wing, to the point of it being uncomfortable, it's painful. 

I respect your opinions even if I don't agree with them, but I feel some of the R&P topics and threads don't respect ideas that are left of center.   I've said several times I'm, politically a Republican and have been for my life.  I'm voting Democrat this year but I voted for Johnson in 2016.  I don't particularly agree with the left, but I don't demonize it and understand that both sides have a lot of right and wrong. 

There's a lot of what we historians call "The Erosion of the Middle" here.  And trust me, I've seen it from leftist people too.   I've literally lost friends on the left since 2016...in VERY ugly fashions.  Not forum friends, actual personal IRL friends.  I lost them because I did things like not vote for Clinton, and defend some stuff on the right. 

So, yeah, I'm one of the votes for shut it down.  I'll keep participating in it if it's here and I understand why people want it.  But, I feel we've lost a lot more than we've gained.   The silence from some of the people that are gone is deafening.

I'm with you SirAndrew.

I would charactorize myself as a conservative but even that is being tried due to some personal issues I've been dealing with.

That said, at the end of the day I can't really support either side based on what the parties are made up of currently vs my current economic position. I consider myself / family as middle class, probably would be classified middle high class in in most states but property taxes alone will get you anywhere from a nice used car to brand new accord every year, depending where you live in NJ. So, because I am not ultra rich, so the Republican right has no use for me as I am not a major corporation, I do not run a major corporation and I am not one of the 1%. However, I have a mind, I don't follow people easily and I like to call BS when I see it, so the Democratic left also has no use for me. Therefore, no matter who gets elected I know I am getting screwed over.

So ultimately I consciously vote most specifically on things that effect me directly, IE state and local referendums, local town council, county seats, school board, etc. Since I know regardless of who sits in the WH I am getting screwed I really don't give a shit; they both suck.

Ok, I'll get off the bourbonbox now.

Have a good night Grogs.

[al_infierno]

+1 to the last two comments.  I'd actually like to re-rescind my vote and cast it as Option 1.

[SirAndrewD]

I'm literally not lying in that my voting history as a "young" man is this...

Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney, Johnson, Biden.


That's where I am at.  And please get, I'm not getting there from an uninformed place. 

We're not in a vacuum. 

[Jarhead0331]

guys....you're proving my rationale for even starting this poll. Even this thread is crossing over into politics. It finds a way to seep into everything.

The only thing I want to add is on a personal note in response to SirAndrews comment about how certain people left the site over "right wing" politics. I've never accepted that as the true cause for why certain people left. It is completely unreasonable. If you're going to abandon something you helped build over a period of years and friends you've had for decades simply because some people hold different political views, then you should be in therapy. That's just not how the world works. If you have a problem with something that was posted or with certain members, you talk about it. You don't abandon your friends without any prior notice, complaint or discussion. It was a bullshit excuse then and it's a bullshit excuse today.

We don't allow extremist views of any kind here. Period. We never have and we never will. If anyone ever feels like a line is crossed, you come to me, Gus or one of the mods. Your concern will be addressed.

In the words of the great Forrest Gump, that's all I've got to say about that.

[Pete Dero]

Although I have already written many posts in R&P, I am convinced that this has not changed anyone's vision. And although I now understand a number of points of view better, I haven't really changed my mind either.

As long as society remains so polarized (and this is certainly not only the case in the US) R&P has no real added value, I fear.

News facts can still go to Current Events if we can keep that forum fairly clean.

[Jarhead0331]

Although I have already written many posts in R&P, I am convinced that this has not changed anyone's vision. And although I now understand a number of points of view better, I haven't really changed my mind either.

As long as society remains so polarized (and this is certainly not only the case in the US) R&P has no real added value, I fear.

News facts can still go to Current Events if we can keep that forum fairly clean.

I agree. But therein lies the problem. What's a "fact"? Facts and data are all manipulated now to support one agenda or another. You post a lot of links around here to articles that you probably view as factual. Others here probably view them as satire.

I don't want to be in the business of having the final say on what is a permissible fact and what is  impermissible fiction. I'll leave that to Facebook and Twitter. See what I did there?

[Gusington]

FWIW, I am 100% certain that yes, our old partners and members left and used the 'extreme right of this site' as an excuse. I miss most of who left because I considered them good, if virtual, friends, but they left for other reasons and the 'rightism' of GH was clearly a BS excuse.

[airboy]

Although I have already written many posts in R&P, I am convinced that this has not changed anyone's vision. And although I now understand a number of points of view better, I haven't really changed my mind either.

As long as society remains so polarized (and this is certainly not only the case in the US) R&P has no real added value, I fear.

News facts can still go to Current Events if we can keep that forum fairly clean.

Pete - you occasionally post things that change my mind.  And your response to my Fallout New Vegas modding question has shaped my gaming for more than a week and still going strong.  Thanks!

[Ubercat]

FWIW, I am 100% certain that yes, our old partners and members left and used the 'extreme right of this site' as an excuse. I miss most of who left because I considered them good, if virtual, friends, but they left for other reasons and the 'rightism' of GH was clearly a BS excuse.

I'm not convinced that it was just excuses from their perspective. Left leaning people seem to have a mental caricature of the positions of conservatives and centrists that doesn't match reality. Just recently on this board we've seen an assumption that a supporter of gun rights would only want them for white people. Also, bringing up cultural differences as a possible cause of racial disparity seemed to lead to the assumption that I was naive and had little to no familiarity with actual black people.

Head scratchers for sure.

Edit: sorry this post seems a little harsh. I'm posting from my phone at work and it's more difficult to settle on a tone. Maybe I should have a rule that I only post from home.