My last word--until the NEXT word

[anahata56]

First, go here and read. And I suggest you also read the links posted within the content, so that you really are aware of what the TOS actually SAYS--i.e., Live Journal can, indeed, by their own Terms of Service, to which you agreed before you opened your account, make changes to the structure, the accounting and the general Live Journal-ness of

Comments

[trishtrash]

I'm not unfriending you because you and I have differing opinions - I'm unfriending you because you write entries that speak to your 'friends' like they are idiots; the arrogance (which I have seen displayed by you elsewhere, and in your treatment of others) is not something I find at all appealing.

People who decide that asking for change, or respect, or basic communication is pointless, that it's useless to ask to be noted, that TPTB must not be challenged because they have the right to arbitrarily change the nature of their service - are within their own rights to hold and express their opinions.

But when that opinion includes the notion that I/whoever disagrees with you is clearly an idiot for wanting something better from the people in charge, then I really think we have a large rift in our basic understanding of the world and how we'd like it to work, and very little commonality in our outlook(s). Ignore what I think, take a different view, but don't try to make me feel or look stupid because of it, or I will conclude that we are not friends, and have never really been so. I am an easy-going friend, not a doormat, and arrogance that comes in the form of belittling others will not sit with me.

This is about my response to you, not my wish to help the lj community get a number of valid points across. Or about winning (a word I don't believe appears anywhere in any of my posts or comments on the subject); I've seen more aggression in your response to the strike than is implicit in the strike itself, incidentally.

[anahata56]

If you can point to one place where I expressed my opinions of any individual in a less than flattering light, I invite you to show me where it is.

And for the record, I don't have the power to "make" anyone look or feel stupid, especially not via the expression of an opinion that I expect no one (or at least very few) to share.

For the last week, I've been subjected to post after post after post about the evils of LJ, and the implication that anyone who does not participate in this strike as some sort of suck-up, or worse, as a collaborator. And while you are not one of the people who have done that, you are the one who took it upon yourself to be offended when I expressed my offense at those people who did.

Why? This doesn't belong to you if you're not one of the people displaying the behaviors. And surely if you took offense at this post, then you would take equal offense at the people who gave rise to it--right? And if arrogant, insulting people offend you, then you would be equally offended by the people who did resort to those tactics with whom you did fundamentally agree....right?

So why is it OK for you to be offended, by either the opinion or the tone, but I'm not afforded the same right when I've felt exactly what you're feeling when I read the posts posted by people who not only disagree with me but also are of the opinion that I am collaborating with the enemy if I don't run like a lemming off the side of the cliff to fight whatever fight they choose?

People are feeling very smug and very self-satisfied about the events of the last day--and that's just as arrogant as anything I've said here, from where I sit. Because the victory, in my opinion, is hollow.

I sit and I look at all of this--at the kind of hysteria that something of this kind causes--and I think, you know, if the same people who are putting so much energy into this were putting the energy into getting people FED, or WELL, or SHELTERED, or even just marginally safe in their online experience, then there could be victories that actually mean something. But the world turns on, and people are so busy shouting about LJ that they don't notice that there are people who have far greater needs than this, and I can't help but feel frustrated.

YES I think that people here have power, and NO, I don't think they're stupid--but I do wonder sometimes why this kind of thing is considered so important, and why it always brings out the worst in people rather than the best....

And I could direct that last statement at myself as well--and I do.

So much for arrogance.

[trishtrash]

Once more - then I'm done, and so are we.

When you 'friend' people and then speak to them, you are talking to them collectively. Everyone who reads your journal is subjected to the same vitriol, whether you mean it for them or not, and is affected by it, unless you filter. Just because you've been subjected to it, is that a good reason to spread the joy? Did *I* attack your intentions on any subject before I had to read your smug denouement of everyone who signed the terms of agreement and then wished to express distress of SUP's latest policy sweep?

Take that comment about wasted energy - was that not directed at me? You assume so very much - I feel as if I've wasted more time explaining why I don't like your attitude than on the strike, which involved some thought as to whether I agreed with the majority of the reasoning behind it, a few posts and then all of sudden feeling like I'm under attack from someone who initially claimed to respect the opinions of people participating.

Your second post on the subject pretty much blew that theory out of the water.

[anahata56]

Clearly, there is no meeting of the minds here, and that's fine--it is what it is.

But no--nothing that I've written is directed at anyone not demonstrating the behavior. If you think you're included in that, then that's your choice, not a designation I've assigned to you.

In the meantime, I'm glad that you have chosen, for yourself, not to read what offends you. That indicates a willingness to think for yourself and to act on your convictions, and I admire that.

But as you go, know this--I bear no ill will, on a personal level, to anyone based on their opinions or even their expression of them, no matter how offensive I find either. The interesting thing about people (and I do count myself among that throng) is that they are both glorious AND faulty--sometimes simultaneously.

I will never feel negatively about a person as a response to either their opinion or their expression of it--that's not how I roll. If you read this post again, you will see that it criticizes ONLY behaviors--I can't criticize people because that's not my job. Because its been my experience that even the most virulent opponent has more good in him than evil...

And that everyone--everyone--does what they do because they think they're right to do so.

Go well.