Reply #183: Bravo!

[David Zephyr]

Several months back I took it upon myself to take back my own label of "disciples" that I'd given to very small minority here, who seemed, in my opinion, to defend President Obama in every instance, in his every action and in his every word. Although, there does seem to exist a small, and yes, annoying cultish element to the worship of personality, I concluded that it wasn't necessary for me to point this out in threads because the DU community has its own 'distributive logic' and would sort this out in a natural course.

Skinner, I've watched you walk this high wire for nine years now maintaining balance through two wars, four national election cycles, two very contentious presidential primary seasons and through the ups and downs of our collective political hopes and dreams. And through it all, you have kept the forums open and vigorous.

In all these many years now, I have probably used the alert feature less than the ten fingers on my hand, and I believe it was only when name calling had gotten too ugly, or excessively crude language or hurtful language that reflected racist, sexist or homophobic sterotyopes that was intended to inflame, or to point out an obvious Republican poser here among us.

I trust the Mods and the Administrators here so much that I am confident that they can pick up on anyone trying to abuse the Alert feature in hopes of punishing or removing someone they simply disagree with. I know that the Mods are savvy enough to recognize manipulation when they see it.

As to "paid advocates"...well, that's just a reality of the times we live in. We are fools if we don't believe it happens. If the U.S. Congress can be bent by the power of money, so any blog left or right, can be manipulated by contracted keyboard advocates. Again, these individuals, I feel, will only quickly expose themselves as pretty much "one-noters".

In all due respect, I would suggest that the 'unrec' feature feeds into the very sort of bad behavior that is hurtful to good discussion. I would hope that you ponder this a bit, Skinner.

You have a very vibrant and healthy site here. I trust your judgment. But you already know that.