Cord,

You make a good point: the internet being what it is, credibility is difficult to establish. I also agree forming (or changing) one's political perspective is a long, difficult prcoess, and few people are likely to be completely turned around by what they see posted on a chat board.

But so what? Changing a person's views in a single conversation, whether that conversation takes place face to face or online, is too ambitious and not really the goal. The goal is to plant seeds of doubt, to get people to question a little--in short, to help along the long, difficult process in some small way. A message board can serve that purpose.

I have no problem with those who avoid political discussions out of some kind of infrmal consensus. If no one brings it up, it will not be discussed. But to ban such discussions outright, to essentially put them in the same category as religious preaching or hate-mongering, is unfair.

And before I forget: thanks the moderators for letting thiss discussion go on.

The more I read Cord's posts the smarter he gets. Make no mistake, you are still a jackass, you have just proven to be able to back it up

So to the point, you never know who you will influence and how on a forum like this, but I will say on more then one occasion I have been given a reason to pause, and think about things in a different light, directly because of something I have read on this forum.

It's why I am still here, and why I will lend my sage advice to those ready to understand it.

Politics is important, and it intersects all walks of life. I am glad the site has allowed the rules to be bent, lets face it there is not much on the MA subject not already covered. So lets allow this to be a diversion until a legit MA thread comes up.

On that note, I have just made a dramatic change in my training, something I will post soon and something that came to be directly because of Cord and John.

More to come~!