I promise not to - to any other posters.  Not to public figures.

I hope that's OK.

I'll sign on, on the following conditions: no name calling, not even public figures or groups, discuss the issues, if the personality is the issue, find an adult way to talk about it without crazy spelling and dehumanizing language, this means JOG, MNSprings and Webster have to actively agree,  but what we have here is a Mexican standoff...

As you know Serow I already attempted this. No one wanted to buy in. Eventually a few people including me pledge to cut it all out. Which happened for a while even though JoG WM Mn and the rest, kept on with their usual stuff. Prolly because they don't really have any arguments.

However my current attitude is to play the most famous game in the whole of the Game Theory world known as Tit for Tat. It's used throughout the animal kingdom and even computer algorithms.

So there will be no abusive language from me ever. Unless of course someone wants to gratuitously call me a moron. In which case I'll probably work 'fcuking imbecile' into my reply. Neither 'fcuking imbecile', nor 'moron' is acceptable but one is not worse than the other.

Then I reset the slate. I don't hold a grudge, you name call me and you'll get it back in spade, then as far as I'm concerned it's done. You won't get any more name calling from me unless you do it again, so if I use abusive language you will always see it is a response.

The reason for this is that after I took the original pledge it just wasn't acceptable to me to allow people to abuse me with impunity. It's really up to WM, JoG, Mn and the like to tone their crap down then we'll all be at peace. Remember when I suggested that we all sign a thread agreeing to end the bollox, the above named posters were the only ones interested in complaining about it.

LostArtist wrote on 10/15/18 at 20:25:31:

I'll sign on

We've already been there done that, haven't we? All that happened was that those who pledged simply put up with the same abuse.

If it's now come to this, then perhaps we should revisit my original idea which was that you put up a new sticky saying that any personal abuse is unacceptable, from anyone. I know you don't want to do this kind of moderation it shouldn't be necessary. But I think the problem is rather unique to this particular forum. There's just a half dozen people who talk like Trump, use his hooks and games and their stance is utterly and totally morally bankrupt, racist and misogynistic, therefore they obviously are unable to string together a line of reasoning, and it's only natural that people with limited conversational or dialectic skills even basic ones are going to feel like they have to be rude and abusive.

Which is why Mn and his ilk would not agree to some rules, if they did that then they'd not be able to say anything. But as long as it doesn't escape the political forum, there's no harm done. It's become like banter.

FWIW I would not even care about any personal abuse directed at me, as long as it was encased in some intelligent reasoning. Often abusive language is simply used as an intensifier.



Summed up nicely here...

https://tinyurl.com/y8ofe53m


Donald Trump is an anger troll. Rage is the one thing he capably nurtures and grows. He stoked anger in people horrified by Kavanaugh’s confirmation and is now turning it against them. This is an old tactic: drive people crazy, then call them so. As projects of government go, this one is as familiar as it is contemptible. He wants to make his followers feel threatened. To achieve this, he needs his opponents to seem irrational. So he sets about making them angry.
He insults them, railroads them, calls people protesting for justice liars and profit-seekers even as he openly enriches his friends. He gives them offensive nicknames and mocks their pain for fun, and to get them to lose control. He’s doing this in plain sight—it’s pretty obvious why people are angry—but his goal is to make their reaction look inexplicable, beyond the pale. After leading angry crowds to yell abuse at anyone he points to, he turns around and marvels at how irrational and dangerous his targets are.

As tactics go, this one is dumb and transparent, but it’s worth describing it because it works. It works a lot. Trump is not a genius. But he instinctively understands the dynamic of provoking and then delegitimizing someone else’s pain. As Adam Serwer wrote, he’s energized by the suffering he causes others and—secondarily—by the bond that ritualized cruelty forges with his base, which has been connected by fear of others. From Trump’s perspective, it’s kind of fun that people feel compassion for the families he separated. It’s delightful that women are worried about rights he has expressly said he wanted to take from them. And, after insulting and belittling people he’s supposed to be governing, he enjoys acting surprised that they mind.

It’s a silly and ugly game, but it’s the only true rule of Trumpism: be the sorest winner imaginable. Aspire to nothing but power and status. Hold no principle sacred. Withhold justice and insult those who object. Yes, the effects of this are predictable. It doesn’t take a genius of social engineering to be the “why are you hitting yourself?” guy. All it takes is a willingness to be him.

The total effect of this robs anger of some of its dignity. It’s doubly humiliating to know the bully enjoys watching his target get mad. I remember the precursors to my anger all those years ago: the agonized deliberations I made in that car as I tried to work out whether I was being unfair or uncharitable—perhaps I’d misread or misunderstood. I went through a thousand possible explanations until his actions whittled any misunderstanding down to the plain and ugly truth. That’s what living feels like in a society like this one: There’s a constant search for reasons your fellow citizens act the way they do that don’t reduce to sadism. There’s a certain relief, then, in crafting your own test for what constitutes the point of no return—the red line that, once crossed, confirms to you that the assault on your autonomy and dignity is overt and intentional.

In fact after re reading this it is clear to me that JoG, Mn, Webster etc, purposely provoke in the same way that Trump does above then point the finger.

For those that would like the TT closed the solution is easy...
Just don't click on it.  It will not exist for you.

For those that want to click on the TT button,... the central reason just can't possibly be to insult or be insulted.
As Melania would say,... Be Better...

Peace,
Serow

Is that an admission, DaWg?... or a drive-by?...

Be the man your dog thinks you are...

Speaking of racist...
Midterm elections: Michelle Obama compared to chimpanzee by Republican Senate candidate
https://www.yahoo.com/news/midterm-elections-michelle-obama-compared-12522557...

Can you admit racism when you see it?...

It's a race to the bottom...