begin rant

Another day on everything and I watch the political fur fly. As an "armchair moderate" I am able to view all of this with a certain degree of dissassociation.

It appears that the vast majority (thanks DMan) of everythingians are leftist, however they are countered by a very vocal rightist minority (who feel obliged to comment at great length on any comment made that attacks right-wing political views, and it's not just DMan). So content wise it seems as though things are evening out. However I have noticed this trend, when a right-winger or left-winger creates a node the other group must deride that group, call them stupid, and tell them how they "should" be thinking.

The fact are that really, you can scream till yer blue in the face, but your chances of actually changing someone's views are about as slim as Calista Flockhart's left arm. All these write-ups do is inflame the opponent group and force a response, which is usually inflammatory to the group that made the first comment, and, bob's your uncle we've got a node that's 20 write-ups in length, and has deviated from discussing anything related to that node's title.

I don't mind a good-natured jab at a celebrity, an individual (be (s)he right-wing, left-wing or unaffiliated), but attacking large groups you doom yourself to inaccuracy. I have learned by talking to many people that though they may claim to be "left wing" they occassionaly match a viewpoint or two with some conservitives, and vice versa. Sure there are a lot of "me too" liberals and conservitives, towing the party line, but it's just bad manners to assume a person belongs in that category. Also when you attack group you get pigeonholed into that groups main opponent. If I attack a liberal-viewpoint write-up I'd bet that most people would assume i was conservitive, and they would also assume that my views are held in line with other conservitives. That's just a general reason why I've spared myself from these arguments, no matter what my emotions have said (yes I've seen write-ups that pissed me off). Unfortunatley everything2 does not have an /ignore option or a node like this one wouldn't be nessecary...

Node facts, node funny, node interesting... but please, let's leave our agendas out of this...

end of rant

DMan -
I know that you node facts as well, most noders do. I have yet to see a noder who only noded opinions. Opinions are fine in "Idea" nodes. That's really what Opinions are, Ideas, I just get a bit tired of Person, Place or Thing write-ups that state an opinion without giving me any facts about the place, person or thing. Take a Calista Flockhart (person) node as an example, I'd rather see that node tell me about the actress and her career, then perhaps an idea node under (for example) The American Standard of Beauty is Skewed" node mentioning (and hard linking) back to the node on the actress, for telling me how her being so skinny is messed up.

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