I just regret that both sides have acted so badly (and I include myself).

As I wrote in another comment, this wasn’t a staff versus member thing. But it seems to moving that way now.

Did GC act badly? Sure he did. But a small handful of people that can’t get rec’d to save their lives made some ridiculous claims about him too, and I can see why it set him off. (For the record, I haven’t been a GC rec’er nor do I ever get many recs. Still, I’m not jealous or complaing about it either).

I hate the attacks against staffers that I admire (and I include you, Leon, and Jeff most prominantly). I am also upset about attacks on people that have been long time members and have their own following at the site. It has been a two sided thing. Unfortunately, most of the folks that seem to applaud the current resolution are people I’ve never heard of before, and I’ve been here for several years. This didn’t seem to be a problem when the site was community oriented.

Its been an unfortunate day, and it could have been headed off if people had been told to settle down instead of letting the insults fester all around until it got out of hand. I think a lot of people were allowed to bait one another, and the end result seems one sided.

I remember getting in a spat with a member many years ago, and I think it was you that jumped in with a comment like “You’re both beautiful”. It patched things up right away. Now folks are at each others throats and we have people jumping in to fan the flames higher.

I think the site was terribly unpleasant yesterday. It seems worse now that the site is undergoing yet another purge. It would be great if cooler heads could work things out. I think Thomas Crown and I did an admirable job laying aside our differences. It’s a shame others won’t do so.

First they came for the Paulbots, and I was cool with that because they are not conservatives to begin with. Then they went after the birthers, which I was cool with. Like most of the GOP faithful (according to a recent poll) I have my doubts about Obama’s document, which is used for out of state births. But I dislike the hard core birthers because I think (like a RS front page post said) that Obama was elected for better or worse, and technicalities are for the losers in elections. But then they came for members who have been cornerstones of the community for years based on an instance of bad behavior. We all make mistakes, and GC sure as heck did with his comments to you. But the man was being baited all night about the recs he receives and I can understand the frustration.

Like it or not, some people vote for president on the pro-life issue, and some vote for only fiscal cons. Others vote based on defense, and others are more wholistic. And a lot of us vote based on which party the guy comes from. Rec’s work the same way. I rec’d a post while pointing out that I didn’t care about the conspirital tone of it. GC rec’d the post, and smeone jumped in and said he must be rec’ing it because of some quid pro quo, which is silly. People rec others like they vote for president, and some people might rec his posts because they admire him. If Bill Buckley was writing at RS, I might rec him to encourage more posts. GC has a long and reputable list of writing accomplishments outside of RS, and it isn’t a stretch to think people like his writing here and rec him quickly. He was baited all night last night, and then wrote something stupid.

We were all quick to forgive our site manager when he wrote or said something foolish about something political and likening it to “bestiality”, and I know I’ve written and said things I would like to take back to. The worse things we say are when we’re angry, often because someone has attacked us or something we believe in and we write something foolish in haste. I did it myself last night.

It isn’t pleasant to have a site full of hateful vitriol against one another. It is just as unpleasant to have a site where there is no “community”, because everything is dicated to us. For example, I’m on the ground in Indiana and know the respect the voters here have for Dan Coats. Our site’s front page attacked him for being to old and having left his job to serve in the state dept. I would expect the national party to misread us in our state, but I would have hoped a DC or GA based site would listen to the ground troops in Indiana (who turned out to be right). We don’t like being dictated to by outsiders. But the worst point came when Coats won the primary, and we still had to hear a parting shot on the front page (which was hardly a tepid endorsement).

As I’ve said before it isn’t “our site”, it belongs to the staff. That’s how it should be, and they set the rules. But it is far from the community site it used to be, and seems to be more about “the front page” and tv and radio appearances than about a community of people getting together to share ideas. Our political leaders think they run the country and don’t work for us. I appreciate that the staff (albeit volunteer) doesn’t work for us, they work for Eagle. And I guess that the advertisers are the customers (though I wish we could get rid of Stansberry, with their record of conspiracies and fines). It would just be nice for the members to have a role too. Right now, the site has become so top/down that we’re even talking about losing the rec feature (because the results don’t please some people).

Its all a terrible shame. I hope, aside from further bannings, that the leadership on the site can consider some changes to how moderating is accomplished, and how members (and staff) are treated. This “firing on the protesters” thing, and the behavior of some of the protesters as well, are both just horrible.

As a long time visitor to RS, I’d like to see it become a more adult friendly atmosphere. While some of the personalities on the site seem to be acsending in the media and influence sphere (which is a good thing), the site itself seems to be disintegrating. The behavior of some individuals is to blame, and the over reaction is just as repugnant.

That’s just my opinion, and I hope it doesn’t come across as disrespectful. I appreciate the hard work of Erick and the staff, and like anyone else, I have some disagreements with how some things work. But I always find myself coming back to Red State because, despite a lot of the dysfunctionality, it is still family. I hope nothing I’ve said rises to a bannable level. I’m just trying to express what I’m thinking.

Speaking of dysfunctional familes, I hope my brother GC is big enough to apologize for talking back to mom, and I hope dad (Erick) doesn’t think breaking GC’s arm is the best way to react.

Reconcilliation and forgiveness are as much a part of Christianity as justice. Especially where family is concerned.