I've made my opinion known as far as this label goes and I am not going to beat it into the ground.

Your opinion and concerns were respectfully noted by me, because even when I disagree with you (and others), I still always listen. I got so angry because I felt you absolutely refused to extend me the same courtesy. And again, your concerns will be accommodated, and I will urge the utmost caution in using the word only on individuals where it truly appears applicable with the available evidence, especially when it comes to particularly young individuals like pre-pubescents and even younger adolescents. This I promise you. Thank you for deciding that you will not beat this matter any further into the ground, and that it's not worth yet another bitter falling out between the two of us, and creating more chaos on the board via a slew of flame wars between the supporters and dissenters.

However, I do have a couple of things to say about this post. First off, about 80% of this post is about me. If you want to complain about me, fine, but you could've taken this to PM instead of spending most of this post bitching about me. Secondly, I don't think I was nearly as insulting as you make me out to be here. Grow a thicker skin, dude.

Markie, you are constantly insulting to us on a regular basis, and you had to throw in some of those insults again in this discussion (e.g., your belief that the majority of the board thinks there are millions of kids out there "clamoring" to have sex with us), thus making it clear that some part of your problem here was totally personal. I have told you this before. You frequently tell us what you really think about this community and those who hold the majority opinion within it, and you always insist you aren't being insulting, but simply telling it like it is as you see it. That was precisely what I was doing here, yet you took it as nothing but a string of insults. Considering how you react when people counter your insults and antagonistic observations, the "get a thicker skin" advice is something you should also heed. Needless to say, I provided proof that I respectfully addressed your concerns from the get-go, but you had to ignore that as if I never said it more than once (which I did), and make antagonistic, hostile attacks on me about this subject, including throwing those personal details out, acting as if the coinage of this term is going to bring down Ragnarok on the youth community. You simply got back what you gave out. I know you don't see it that way, but that's because, as was the case sometimes in the past, you were not very self-introspective about your behavior that provoked the above post of mine. I know how I can be sometimes with my temper, and I admit I need to take some chill pills, but you need to likewise be mindful about how you come off when you launch your diatribes against the entire community. This matter was not worth the hostility you put into it after you changed your mind about it, and I tried very hard to be respectful and conciliatory with you, but you had to ignore that and pick a fight. You have to understand that if you pick a fight, sometimes you are going to get one. That is what happened here.

Thirdly, you claim that I like being negative and playing the martyr, a point you've made before, and yet you've never to my knowledge said a word to Minstrel, who hasn't made a single positive post since I've been at GC, as far as I can recall. There might be a few sprinkled here and there, but for the most part all he ever does is gripe about not having a girl in his life and how society treats him like shit. Talk about playing the fucking martyr! And why haven't you said anything to him about his incessant pity parties? At least my griping is only periodic.

For what it's worth, I do not encourage Minstrel's pity parties, as you call them, and I can understand why this becomes grating to you when you see it on a regular basis. I have had my disagreements with Minstrel before, but most of the time when he greatly disagreed with me about something, he told me about it via PM in chat, because he didn't want the argument dragged out on the board. This is why you have not seen most of our more notable disagreements. An exception to that was the rather large disagreement we had over Sarah Goode's first book, when she released the table of contents prior to the publication of the book, and he vehemently disagreed with me that a woman who came off as so nice to him in her e-mail interviews for her book could possibly have written the material that her table of contents suggested, and he seemed to think I should have considered that the pre-publication review of her book was a lie to make the tome more palatable to the public (it turned out that Dr. Goode did indeed pull a major fast one on the MAPs who had trusted her, and she deservedly made Remo, who endorsed her "MAA Lives" project, look like a fool). I have also disagreed with him strongly in public about his foolish support and defense for emovocals (you are Mother Theresa compared to emovocals, and I will take a hundred of you over one of him any day of the week), as well as his support of Puzzled when the latter made a few bitchy attacks on the board a year ago or so, and the drama that ensued as a result. You must have missed these, because Minstrel and I got quite angry at each other over these matters. But he often makes very good and informative posts, just as you do when you aren't behaving as I described above.

Also, as of the past year or two, Minstrel has not posted nearly as much as you. Minstrel does make a lot of negative posts, but the thing is, despite some disagreements I have had with him over the years, he doesn't regularly attack his own community even if his level of anger can be difficult to deal with at times.

Oh, I know why . . . because he agrees with you on everything and I don't.

No, he doesn't. Read the above paragraphs again. Note also, that while he is fully pro-choice like I am, and thus shares more of that ideology with me than you do, he greatly disagrees with my stance of compromising to a certain extent with the general public, as well as my belief that our progress has to be gained incrementally, and that we can't expect all of our rights to be awarded all at once. I am also willing to work with people outside our community who sympathize with us but who may not fully share the pro-choice viewpoint, something both Minstrel and Gatekeeper are against me doing, and which they both consider me to be placating the public rather than working with them to achieve a mutual dialog and understanding. (In fact, I just had it out with Gatekeeper about that in a big way about two days ago when he pretty much accused me of placating the public, something he would never do himself; did you miss that?)

So you have your favorites, and this just proves your criticisms are made selectively against those who happen not to agree with every damn thing that comes out of your mouth. If you're going to criticize me for being negative, at least be consistent.

There are naturally some people I respect more than others, but my criticisms are leveled in proportion to how much I believe the individual in question deserves them, and frankly, Minstrel, for all his difficult points, has not attacked the community or waffled on his opinions as often as you have, and this is why I have gotten into squabbles with him less often than you. Nevertheless, I never hesitate to tell anyone if they say something I strongly disagree with. Gatekeeper is one of my closest friends on the board, as well as off the board, yet did you not see me really take him to task about something the other day after I respectfully lamented something he has a tendency to do that I believe is greatly detrimental to the board, and he responded by whining and making accusatory statements, followed by taking indirect pissy and sarcastic barbs at me in a post to someone else the following day? This is actually a matter that you have publicly agreed with me about more than once. Read and be enlightened, Frojo: https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/555927.htm

This is the post of his in the initial thread that started the above tiff, so you can see my initial polite response to him, followed by his response to me: https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/555773.htm

And here was my initial polite response to him that started the fighting: https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/555775.htm

The above, btw, is something I have argued against with several pro-choicers quite passionately in the past, and again, it's something you have agreed with me about. So there are indeed a few issues I have with some of the most vocal pro-choicers on the board, and I certainly don't agree with them about everything. I have also argued rather heatedly with Gatekeeper in the past about subjects like the legality of abortion; the role of the U.S. military in the world; etc. Have you missed all of that?

But you won't because you are biased as hell, dude.

That was a cheap shot. Please read the above and keep your eyes open more in the future.