Political issues

Roger Hicks said:
Very true.

Here's an observation, for what it's worth. It looks to me as though those who don't have a problem with politics in the forum are mostly on the left, while those who want all discussion of politics banned are mostly on the right.

Does anyone else have the same impression? It's a wild generalization, of course, but it's the impression I've gained.

Cheers,

Roger
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I for one can't stand the left or the right because all they do is spend spend. So it is all the same to me.
 
CameraQuest said:
Apparently a lot of posters on this thread have not bothered to read the FAQ of this forum at http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/faq.php It would seem Olsen that the FAQ is new territory for you.

This is a moderated photography forum. It is not about politics. You want politics, find another forum to vent about it.

Stephen
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Yet moderation does not exempt you from freedom of speech. I understand the need to moderate insults, racism, sexism and so on, but the civilized talks on politics should be treated on the same level as basketball or any other subject. Now the fact that some members cannot have a civilized talk on politics is another issue, that obviously you do not wish to deal with and I can understand that. I just think it is sad, if we, mostly educated people can't talk about it, I am worried for the world.

Anyway, I don't come here to talk about politics either and also enjoy the off topics subjects from basketball to Happy Birthday.
So let's leave Olsen create a www.rangefinderforumandpolitics.com website :D
 
I noticed these two statements:

endustry said:
I think it's an issue of banal/innocuous discussion vs. polarizing/serious discussion. For the non-participant, sports has always primarily played the role of vicarious warfare. We can get together and talk about who kicked whose ass last Sunday but no one died in the game and the fans of the losing team weren't fed into slave labor camps or brutally oppressed ....
...
The tone is sometimes serious and the arguments heated but we're not talking about life and death. That is the tone of this forum and that tone would be altered by open discussion of politics which inherently cannot avoid issues of dire consequence.
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and

memphis said:
probably the reason that politics are touchy here is that it usually goes like this:

(90%) Bush is a nazi... he lied, people die... try him for warcrimes
(3%) Now hold on, fair is fair... obama did this - drop the rhetoric - you've already started with an inflamatory position and seems only fair that we can give a bit back to you...
(7%) Can we just talk about cameras...
(90%) 3%, you are a puppet of the neocon regime... you're an a'hole sent to infiltrate and spread propaganda...

and so forth... the discussions ALWAYS turn ugly and have a very definite bias.
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Both statements are from users who seem to live in the US. If this is the typical level of political discussion in the US, I can understand that they don't want this kind of argumentation here. In Germany political discussions normally are not on such a hateful level.
I regularly visit a large german photography-forum and they have a section "small talk" where everything from politics over party tips to advices for buying cars is discussed without bigger problems. Without that section many people would stay away and would not write in the photographic sections anymore.
 
yanidel said:
You are probably right. Reality is that with the current failure of ultra-liberalism, the voices for a more balanced world are raising all over the planet. (damn, I am talking politics ... sorry)
I also would say that Europeans seem in general more open to politics talk than our friends from across the ocean. Bipartism is probably the reason for it.
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This is a wonderful example of what we can learn. 'Ultra-liberal' is used pretty much as a derogatory term in both France and the USA -- but the intriguing thing is that it has almost precisely opposite meanings.

The French use it to mean 'extreme free market'. Americans use it to mean 'further left than I can handle'.

Isn't this something worth learning?

And for those who are afraid of (or merely antipathetic to) political threads: isn't it better that we learn this from one another, than assume erroneously that other people know what we mean?

Cheers,

Roger
 
kshapero said:
dang Roger, you trapped me into being political.
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Sorry!

But maybe it's quite hard not to be political. At best, people can pretend that they aren't. The only people they fool are themselves, because their attitudes to an enormous range of things will give them away.

What strikes me as important is not 'buying the package', e.g. believing that all liberals (American usage) are anti-gun or (European usage) pro-gun. Similarly for abortion, state intervention*, welfare provision...

*There's a lovely cartoon in this week's Private Eye magazine. Under the heading CITY OF LONDON RECYCLING POINT there are two bins labelled 'Bottles' and 'Banks'.

Cheers,

R.
 
eleskin said:
It is Bush's fault!

Read Joseph Steiglitz 3 trillion dollar war.

The dollar took a dump, and made
Leica glass very expensive for us all. This is bad for Leica. The US is their most important market.

I hope they and we survive the coming DEPRESSION!!!
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Now THIS post is exactly why politics shouldn't be discussed....
 
Another forum (non-photography) that I belong to created a special area just for political discussions. Although people have managed to limit the discourse to political issues, it has become a very ugly place and no matter how thick skinned a person purports to be, I have no doubt there are several friendships that may have been ruined as a result of the postings there. I'm not sure what the moral to the story is other than that even by providing a separate space for such discussions, it can easily get out of hand and have unintended results.

Ash
 
Perhaps if more people had more practice at discussing politics, they could do so without immediately descending to stereotypes and insults. Blocking discussion can only make it more difficult for people to learn to discuss things in a grown-up way.

Oh: and clearly there's a lot of interest in this -- more than in "I just got a ______ and haven't taken any pictures with it yet, but here's a picture of it."

An aside to Richard: I can't remember which movie studio had the slogan 'Ars Gratia Artis'. Add an 'e' to 'ars' and you have a useful caption to that picture...

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
An aside to Richard: I can't remember which movie studio had the slogan 'Ars Gratia Artis'. Add an 'e' to 'ars' and you have a useful caption to that picture...

Cheers,

R.
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MGM Studios (Metro Goldwyn Mayer)

BTW, that was pretty witty, Roger, and funny as well.
 
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Pitxu said:
I don't come to RFF to read Olsens political views or to see how much vodka Roger drinks with his caviar for breakfast.
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I don't come to work to overhear my coworkers' conversations, but it happens and I accept it. Sometimes it's even interesting (but mostly not)!

Do you really think a political discussion will suddenly overwhelm this site? I've been known to get riled up, but I certainly wouldn't want to prevent people from discussing certain subjects here. I'm more likely to participate in a forum where the members are self-regulating, a quality most folks here seem to possess. I see nothing wrong with the occasional spicy discussion.
 
come on peoples...do we really need to be doing this again. Most of the times politics only show up when someone complains about another leica price hike then people justify it with the politics. So is this bad blood here partially leica's fault? (poor attempt at fuzzy logic joke)
 
Roger Hicks said:
And for those who are afraid of (or merely antipathetic to) political threads: isn't it better that we learn this from one another, than assume erroneously that other people know what we mean?
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Hear, hear! We shouldn't be afraid to learn about each other.

Wasn't it Yoda who said that fear leads to the dark side (by way of anger and hate)?
 
This forum is an American forum and Americans don't like criticism by pinko Europeans/Canadians/etc...

:)


P.S. Pinko is a slang for left-leaning, hippie-loving, dope-smoking, tree-hugging communists.
 
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