An epiphany, and an apology

Anyone with an ounce of honesty must admit to posts that shouldn't have been sent out. You and I, MM, don't think at all alike on many issues. But it seems to me that you are sincere in your beliefs and disinclined to ridicule those who dare to disagree with you.
Those last 8 words, alas, have swamped A2K lately. Civility is sinking on A2K.

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Yes, and actually its people like MM and Hamburger and you Johnboy and others here and elsewhere on A2K with whom I can disagree about this or that but who don't have to be hateful or personally insulting about it that keeps me coming to A2K. If there were only people here who can't seem help being hateful or unkind to people with whom they disagree, I wouldn't be here.

Maybe the new format makes it more difficult to avoid the ugliness. I doubt it is any more than it has ever been, but it does seem to be in our face a lot more these days.

MM and I probably share more views than we disagree on, but he has opposed a point of view or two of mine. When he did he was not judgmental or hateful or insulting or self righteous or patronizing or condescending. And that's why I gave him kudos instead of absolution. I don't have anything to forgive him for. If it helps, MM, I will allow you a free inadvertent insult on down the line somewhere. Smile

(I also appreciate that he put his life on the line in Iraq and elsewhere for his country and for me, but that's another subject.)

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@mysteryman,

mysteryman wrote:

I made some rather insulting comments about many people on here that I disagreed with, I made insulting comments about liberals as a whole, and at times I was a complete idiot to people.

Most of us can be complete idiots to people at times. I know I can. But it takes a mensch to own up to it. I respect you for the fact that you are, and that you did. Thanks for that post.

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@mysteryman,

Quote:

I will be happy to post some of the quotes I originally got angry about, if you really feel its needed.

The point is that I was angry and rude and mean to many people on this site and others that didnt deserve it.
I am not looking for kudos for having served in Iraq, I am trying to apologize for my actions since I got back.

As for the rest of you, thank you for allowing me to apologize.

Then do so. Frankly, your apology doesn't matter to me. You are doing it to make yourself feel better, not me. If you want forgiveness, do something real instead of words. Give $20 to the ACLU.

Your not a bad person there MM, and my heart ached for you when you described the loss of your wife, but simply I don't believe much in "born-again" conversion, especially when words are not backed up by action. But that's the Roman Catholic in me where Good words must be accompanieded by Good actions to obtain Grace, otherwise, recall that talk is the cheapest coin in the realm.

As I said, live well and prosper.

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@Foxfyre,

foxfire wrote :

Quote:

Yes, and actually its people like MM and Hamburger and you Johnboy and others here and elsewhere on A2K with whom I can disagree about this or that but who don't have to be hateful or personally insulting about it that keeps me coming to A2K.

what are you trying to do , foxfire ?
not trying to ruin my reputation , are you ? Shocked

reminds me of my first manager in germany . he send me off to see some other department manager - the two of them always seemed to be close to a punchup .
i came back and reported : "yes , he agreed to your request ! " .
my boss looked at me and said : "that's the trouble with you , you always try to do things the easy way rather than getting into a disagreement . you really should stop that ! " .

while i did get into some real fist-fights as a (young) teenager , i never enjoyed it - preferred making friends rather than making enemies .
take care !
hbg

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@hamburger,

No worries Hamburger. Whenever you say something snotty, I'll be sure to point it out in the interest of preserving your reputation. Smile

Seriously though, it takes so little effort to be pleasant, and though there will always be a few a-holes in the world or those so insecure that they think being kind is a weakness, I think most of us at any age really just want to fit in, be included, and be friends whenever we can.

And that's true on A2K as much as anywhere else I think.

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I think being kind is a weakness.

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@dyslexia,

dys :
not to worry - we accept your weaknesses - will never point them out to you , though !
hbg

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@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

dys :
not to worry - we accept your weaknesses - will never point them out to you , though !
hbg

well, people who meet me in real life think I'm a kind polite and always (almost) civil person but conservatives on a2k seem to perseverate on attacking me just because I don't always have my facts straight or I ridicule conservatives and then claiming I am misunderstood and taken out of context.

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@dyslexia,

Two kinds of people: people who meet you in real life, and conservatives on a2k.

Hmmm. What to do? What to do?

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@dyslexia,

dys wrote :

Quote:

people who meet me in real life think I'm a kind polite and always (almost) civil person

it would be next to impossible for me to reach such lofty status (wish i'd know what "lofty" means - just sounds good ) .
true "hamburgers" are usually considered kind of "stand-offish" - sort of like the old brits : "stiff upper lip and all that rot" .
when i was growing up "hamburgers" always liked to remind people that they were not germans (definetely NOT prussians) , but were "citizens of the FREE and HANSEATIC city of hamburg " .

(perhaps like the old kind texans ?)

the herald of the city of hamburg

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hamburglers are always elitists.

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@mysteryman,

MM - quick disclaimer here, you owe me no apology of any kind. I owe you thanks for your service, so if I missed that in the past, accept it now...

Most posters here seem to take the same tack, whether they agreed with you on every point or not - and I usually did. Nice of you to ask, all the same, maybe I should follow your example - will think about it Smile

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@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

..........
when i was growing up "hamburgers" always liked to remind people that they were not germans (definetely NOT prussians) , but were "citizens of the FREE and HANSEATIC city of hamburg " .
.......

FYI, Prussian cities were ALSO free AND members of the Hansa - Danzig, Elbing, Stettin, Königsberg, and others. Many keep that link until now:

Quote:

....The Dutch cities of Deventer, Kampen, Zutphen, and the nine German cities Bremen, Demmin, Greifswald, Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar still call themselves Hanse cities. .."

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hanseatic_League

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@High Seas,

high seas wrote :

Quote:

FYI, Prussian cities were ALSO free AND members of the Hansa - Danzig, Elbing, Stettin, Königsberg, and others. Many keep that link until now:

you surely wouldn't want to claim that anyone born outside the city limits of the "old" hamburg could be considered an equal to a true hamburger , would you ? (GRIN)

people living on the south side of the elbe river (such as in harburg) were considered to be from southern germany (sued-deutsche) - they might as well have been born in bavaria !

i remember my mother's father very well . he had been born in frankfurt/main . his own children would crack a joke about him not speaking the local dialect (platt-duetsch) properly - even though he had lived and worked in hamburg since his early 20's .

to show how much "superior" the hamburgers were to all those "others" , this little "true" (GRIN!)story might illustrate it :
you probably know that "altona" (now part of GREATER HAMBURG) lies just to the west of the city .
god decided to visit the earth in diguise and noticed a man sitting on a border stone just outside hamburg (and within altona) and crying bitterly .
god said : " why are you crying ? i am here to help anyone ! "
the crying man said : "i am from altona and the hamburgers won't let me in - nobody can help me ! "
god sat down next to the man from altona and cried with him - even he couldn't help him !

i'm sure that you will have no doubt about the veracity of this historical event .
hbg (would like to help anyone to get into hambrg ... but if you weren't born there ... )

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@hamburger,

I had an Austrian great grandmother who thought Germans were a course and inferior species. Smile

Never mind that most of her (and my) relatives from that branch of the family were German and not Austrian. She just figured the location of their birth was accidental or unavoidable and of course they would have chosen to be proper Austrians given the chance.

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@Foxfyre,

foxfire wrote :

Quote:

I had an Austrian great grandmother who thought Germans were a course and inferior species.

that's why the old hamburgers didn't want to be known as germans ; perhaps even prussians - heaven forbid (did your great grandmother perhaps have any connection to hamburg <GRIN> ? she might have been accepted for her views <GRIN> ) .
i lived for a year in vienna as a boy and still think of it as one of the great places of this world (right after hamburg - of course) .
have now lived in the same city for some 52 years - but by the time i arrived here , my "formative" years had long passed .
hbg

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@hamburger,

I'm not sure--at least I can't remember--if there is a Hamburg link in there somewhere. I'll dig through that part of the family geneology sometime and if there is, I'll let you know. Smile

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@kuvasz,

Quote:

any remark on this site constued by you about attacking US servicemen was done only in your imagination. until you admit that you will get no absolution from me, because if you don't understand the difference between hating the war while supporting the warrior you haven't grown a scintilla in moral stature. your mea culpa about your past would be better received had you not started off with a lie about the motivation for your attitude.

I apologize to the rest of you for haveing to do this, but I must put this to rest.
This is the last time I will EVER mention these posts.

kuvasz,
if you think it was all "only in your imagination", then please see for yourself.
Start right here...http://able2know.org/topic/5285-18
And start reading the comments from "henrygreen"

After you read them, you can then piss off!

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I have to say that I don't put much stock in these (generally) maudlin exchanges, but then I have never seen A2K as anything but a forum for discussion and never a wholesome community.

I don't doubt your sincerity MM, but I do think that Kuvy, wthin his own self-absorbed A2K mind-set, is correct in suggesting the apology is very much about you.

Of course, all of our postings (including this one) are more about ourselves than others.

Frankly, you are one of the least offensive posters in this forum and, in my opinion, have nothing for which to apologize, but if doing so makes you feel better, so be it.

Just remember, this is Virtual Reality

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An epiphany, and an apology

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