Sunday, November 05, 2006

BYB Sunday: A Voice of Reason

I already used up the one about the twix, so I'm mention this situation instead. I had someone plink me out of myself long enough to avoid a lengthy flame war. An early 90s flame war consisted of people saying nasty things back and forth at each other in the venue of an internet "news group." I guess today's equivalent is a "blog war" where people on different blogs post nasty things about each other on their blogs.

In this situation, the other fellow and I were getting ready to have a wonderful back-and-forth about WMD in Iraq: where they really present before the invasion? If not is the US's current campaign morally grounded? Who is being a fanatic for taking one side over the other, etc. etc. This was shaping up to be a typical flame war.

My blessing came in the form of someone pointing out that whose fault the war was is really rather irrelevant – all that matters right now are the lives that can be saved. Our soldiers that have been tossed into what is quickly becoming a civil war, the civilians who don't really give a damn who wins so long as people stop with the bombs and the assassinations, etc.

The person had some other comments that I didn't agree with and you can see her complete posting over on the Non Compos Mentis forum for the "No Nukes is Good Nukes" story. The basic notion of "fix the problem not the blame," however, is one that I wish were far more prevalent in my day-to-day life.

At any rate, this revelation saved me quite of bit of time and anger regarding an issue that really does not matter. Thank you.

On a related note, I have turned comment moderation on for the time being. While it is my fondest wish to get feedback regarding my posts, I am not interested in making this site another site for a flame war. Just exercise courtesy and common sense and your post should go through without any trouble. For others I will try to work with them through email. Image from "The Blue Panther Experience and Other things..." Technorati: , , ,

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It's good you had the sense to shut anything down before it got started. Those negative exchanges can be so pointless.

Blue Panther said...

Nice BYB post!!!

I so agree with the fact that Instead of trying to find out a scapegoat to blame, one should try to prevent the situation from deteriorating any further.

What is done is done. Save the future if you can.

Whatever said...

Thanks! I guess if I was silly enough to start the thing, then being able to restrain my mad, eeeee-vile self from escalating things further is a blessing indeed.