Well gentlemen there's certainly a lot to mull over in this thread.
From what I had seen in the past and one of the reason I decided to join this forum was that people could express themselves without being too offensive and without others being so sensitive that they would take offense.
I know myself that I'm not particularly clever at saying something without it appearing cold,cynical, too blunt or borderline antagonistic - I accept that my personality is retarded and that I don't express myself well enough at times so I apologize for any ill-will that I may have caused for the past, present and the future.
However, this last lot of exchanges shows that there seems to be a whole lot of angst floating around the forum. While I have seen some things that are anti-American, I've seen a few that are very pro-American and by default come across as being anti-someone else.
I'm not saying that should balance everything out and I'm not saying that it's right or corect, what I'm saying is that people should pull their head in and think about how their words will be taken before they submit the post.
Text is so incredibly bad for conveying meaning at times and while I don't believe that any one persons actions should lead to the death of this forum, if there's too much bad feeling because of poorly conveyed thoughts, it most certainly will happen.
Kato has a tough enough time as it is, you should all know that from the message he posted before about his personal life. He doesn't need more trouble. If this comes across as the school master chastising the students, maybe that's what we need, a good kick in the arse to say "stop behaving like arsehats."
So please gentlemen, consider if your words may be offensive before you post but hand in hand with that, readers should stop reading between the lines to try and find anything potentially offensive in what has been written.
I'll climb off the soapbox now, flame me at your leisure
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