Keeping internet blogs nice for everybody is like herding cats. But for sure this latest rumpelstiltskining was not about issues.
If it is a rationality vs spirituality thing, then I think the kind of respect that is needed to tolerate different opinions is as important here as in real live - unless somebody is in the pity state to have no friends or collegues with a vastly different believe system. The Latin 'tolerare' means suffering, and that is what tolerance is about. Otherwise it would be called ignorance. That of course is the way to go if there isn't enough tolerance. But forget about a your idea of "Europe" if ignorance is all you can get even of people, that share so much as the rumpelstiltskins share.

Actually thank you for having this blog. I think this type of community blog is unique in the European sphere and it would really be a pity, when such roots of perhaps a new kind of public would be given up.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 19th, 2009 at 08:16:06 PM EST
Not unique just in the European sphere.  I think ET is head and shoulders above blogs of any sphere.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Thu Feb 19th, 2009 at 08:19:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for interpreting it the way I meant ;)

Well, I can't judge other spheres. But sites like dkos or redstate or even some personal blogs make the US a much richer blogosphere than the European one. Most European blogs tend to be ... national.

By the way, if this site would be located in Germany, Jerome could be sued, if any person insults any other person on ET. Unless there are serious legal changes, such unfiltered publishing with many little known people is close to impossible...

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 19th, 2009 at 08:30:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
dkos is a huge site that does not particularly focus on discussion of differing viewpoints and sharing of information so much as it serves as a megaphone for news and events that are of interest to a particular demographic and point of view.

ET is a place where any good idea, well-presented, can be heard.  That second part may be what is at issue with a certain "argument" more than any bigger idea.

by paving on Fri Feb 20th, 2009 at 02:20:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Now, what I can't work out is how it got that way.

I'm guessing it was the invisible hand of free-market forces and deregulation.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Feb 20th, 2009 at 04:47:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or perhaps a lot of hard work by a lot of people?

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot dotty communists) on Fri Feb 20th, 2009 at 06:08:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Good ol Colman, always the "free narket fundamentalist"!

That's a serious < /snark > for you who don't know Colman...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

by whataboutbob on Fri Feb 20th, 2009 at 11:59:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
... and so flame wars we get.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Feb 20th, 2009 at 12:26:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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