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Steven Donald, The Downtrodden One



> Well maybe Slusher has chilled but 
> Steve Donald was attacked by others (wasn't he basically called a lap dog 
> to the Man).  Steve went out and researched the topic, provided multiple 
> posts worth of justification and then was repeatedly stomped down by 
> others.  

BOY DO I FEEL OPPRESSED!  No, um, I mean I really don't.  I'm not sure 
what your backchannel experiences have been as far as labeling, 
insinuations, and death threats go, but I am a bad example to use if you 
want to talk about the uncivility of the civil rights discussion.  I 
haven't been called a racist, stomped down by anyone, and the only 
construed "attack" was a post by Matt that ironically, HAD NOTHING TO DO 
WITH THE ARGUMENTS FOR OR AGAINST CFR OR CIVIL RIGHTS, but instead was 
aimed at the ethical implications (for which their were none) of offering 
Scott Segal's idea to provide congressional scrutiny of debate if CFR was 
the topic area.  Which, if none of you have noticed, he has since offered 
to do with ANY  of the topic areas chosen, especially civil rights.  
Anyway, you are probrably wondering why I wrote this:

There seem to be a phenomenon surrounding the discussion over civil 
rights that makes people want to call foul against ANY statement made for 
civil rights that comes within the vein of "people should debate an issue 
that is being ignored now, and is important if we are to grow as 
individuals."  They seem to think that if I were to question "Issac, 
don't you think that civil rights is more important that se asia in our 
lives, and offers the hope of personal transformation" that IN REALITY I
mean "Issac, YOU DON'T WANT TO PERSONALLY TRANSFORM, BECAUSE YOU DON'T 
CARE ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS AND THUS YOU ARE A RACIST."  As a casual observer 
of the discussion, one who's emotions probrably haven't been fired up 
over anything but negative ground, I can tell you that this isn't the 
intent of pro-civil rights posts, and at the most describes 1 or 2 of 
them.  People, stop overreacting.  Case in point:   Matt's subject line 
was Denny's Restaurant, in response to Grant Denny's post.  Yes, Denny's 
did discriminate in hiring as a corporation, but I think it was more 
of a poor, toungue in cheek play on words than a label that Grant Denny 
is a Grand Wizard.  It would be like if someone labeled their post 
"McDonald's Restaurant" against a post I made about civil rights.  Yes, 
McDonalds used to fund money as an investment into Zaire's Diamond mines, 
which in turn gave more money to Motombo to starve his people.  But I 
wouldn't construe it as a Racist label, but as a pitiful excuse for 
humor, and then I would proceed to humiliate them for it.

The point is, we need to deescalate our discussions over this issue, so 
we can start to focus on the real issues like ground and predictability 
and topic boredom, rather than spending HALF OF OUR FREAKING POSTS 
exposing our debate colleagues as the namecallers they are.  It's 
pointless, and I'm tired of scrolling through it for 2 minutes until I 
get the part when you have something useful to say.

Can't we all just get along?

Steven McDonald's
UCO Debate

And Grant, here's some ammunition for you if are still upset about the 
Denny's restaurant post by Matt Stannard.

-Matt Stan-nerd (this is my favorite)
-Stannard Stands for Stupid Stuff Salient to Civil Sufferings, and is Stupid 
(the alliteration is key)
-Matt StanHard to understand
-Matthew 1:15 (I'm not sure what that says, but if it has anything to do 
               with something Matt says, but casts a negative light on 
               it, that use it!)
-Mao Stannard (in response to any of his revolutionary talk)
-Matt, the Standard for dumb things (I'm getting desperate here)

or just say at the end of all your posts, "matt eats poop."

These would all be much more entertaining than the things thrown around now.



References:

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