Having only read your posts in the Politics forum:
At 11/25/08 08:02 AM, cellardoor6 wrote:
You may consider the verbal squabbles I've engaged in to be only internet chatter, but I've personally seen the same kind of views carry over into physical fights with lingering hatred, that I've actually been involved in.
I honestly can't say that this surprised me. Country vs. country arguments rarely produce remarkable fruits of human humility and self-control but I can't help remembering the ones that you were involved in as the most unpleasant ones to read through. A lot of people lose themselves in those arguments but they usually have a deep breath at some point at think "what I am getting worked up over?" I remember BanditByte saying something, well, derogatory about Europeans as a whole, as if all the people that live in the continent have one less-than-admirable collective mentality and value pattern, and he apologised in another post a short while later. With you it was always sour, and I have to say that you really stood out in this aspect, as in: you were considerably more sour than others. If I had to guess which BBS poster of whom I had once seen a post got involved in a physical fight due to a country vs. country argument then I wouldn't have to think long before guessing it was you.
Listen Britons, Australians, Canadians... (sorry other people) we are so similar, so bound together by common values that it is FREAKING PREPOSTEROUS that we keep fighting against each other all the time.
I remember you posting about Germans in a thread about Obama's speech in Berlin, saying that they don't share the values that Obama pretended they did with Americans, I did not see his speech but I suspect those values mainly encompassed democaracy, human rights and freedom. I'm not sure if you retract this now, in any case, I notice that I think that you let your mood and outlook on other collectives of people depend too much on outward influences. This is just me me trying to gauge your personality based on what I've seen in your posts, but I think that if you had one bitter country vs. country argument with a German, be it on the Internet or in real life, you'd post about how they're a ungrateful, self-complacent country that has nothing good to offer to the world and if you had a positive encounter with one you'd post about how they share so many common values and how they're the most 'American' country in Europe.
And now you've had a very positive experience with a Brit and a Canadian and the shared values seem so obvious to you. No other Canadian or Brit has changed in even the slightest fashion since that experience, just your opinion of them, and I hate to say but I think it's simply because of your interaction with mere individuals.
It's not like I don't have these mood swings when I see someone from a certain country/faith/other group do something that ticks me off, I seriously once noticed that I thought less favourable about Germans after I saw you praise them in one of your posts (then again, I've never had any extended interaction with Germans so that might have explained the severity of the swing). I think that this was what I disliked about you: you evoked that sort of anger and seemed to represent it, I recognised it in my own thoughts and had always thought of it as one of the lesser laudable parts of my personality.
After having said this, I wouldn't do justice to my opinion of you if I didn't mention positive aspects: you are a good poster, you're thorough and you're knowledgeable, and you certainly didn't shy away from controversy or saying things a lot don't agree with with, in itself, I really respect. When you were not angry you were certainly among the best posters on the Politics forum, and in certain fields at times perhaps the best. However, since your topic is supposed to be about making amends for past grievances or whatever, I have to say that the vindictiveness that you displayed in your posts was something that always continued to taint my opinion of you. You didn't come off as simply wanting to prove your point, you seemed like you wanted to shatter what your opponents thought was important, and even if a number of them provoked you, or, without any sense of self-reproach, bad-mouthed you in unrelated threads, you also often instigated bitter arguments or made them turn much more unpalatable than they had to be.
My family has done so well in the US that it's literally considered to be a miracle by my family, an actual divine intervention by God that they got US Visas and came here.
Also, while I'm not religious myself in the sense that I do not believe in a God that interferes in human affairs, I still have to say that I find this a little odd. Why would God deny millions of people in the Congo or Sierra Leone this kind of divine intervention? Not that one could know or comprehend God's divine plan, but I find it rather hard to believe myself.
Still, of course, I sincerely wish you the best in the military and in your life. I hope that your epiphany regarding other anglophones will turn out to be permanent. For as far as I know you, you certainly have the intelligence and determination to make a great officer, and I hope you will be able to keep your negative emotions from influencing your decisions in the future.
Good luck.
