Hey, Bob, we actually agree on something! I did get personal. In my defense, it's pretty hard not to when the debate is over what someone says, does, and believes and not whether FLARM should be mandatory in contests or if remote thermal detection devices should be banned, or even who should be the next president of the United States.

I would have been OK debating whether some of the letters were a bit confrontational or counterproductive. There are ways to gently register a concern that help promote an open dialogue and a satisfactory compromise.

Quickly, however, the real debate became not whether the complaints and SSA's response were justified but whether your response (and others like it) was acceptable. You led off by alluding to an orchestrated attack on the SSA.. By the next day, you had graduated to referring to the women who had complained as Feminazis, among other things. Gregg raised the ante with "childless corporate whore", which seems destined to follow him forever given his unrepentant posture.

Maybe I'm "overly sensitive" but when I see someone referring to people I know using a form of the term Nazi, it's pretty inflammatory. Like you, however, I looked up the word. Wikipedia (flawed, but at least it collects multiple references) defines Feminazi as "a pejorative term for feminists which was popularized by politically conservative American radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh." The Oxford Dictionary of American Slang says "it refers (pejoratively) to "a committed feminist or a strong-willed woman".

On that basis, although juxtaposing "Nazi" and "feminist" is questionable to me, I wouldn't accuse you of wanting to cleanse the world of women by force to make room for a [short-lived and sexually frustrated] master race of Floridian men.

But there's the word "perjorative", which means "expressing contempt or disapproval". That's not calculated to lead to productive debate.

Further into the Wikipedia entry, there's discussion about Feminazi being used "to marginalize any feminist as a hardline, uncompromising manhater." That's a pretty disparaging depiction, especially combined with being viewed with contempt.

So, yeah, my disagreement with you (and some others) IS personal. As I said, we could debate whether some or all of the letters to the SSA were appropriate or even if SSA's response was reasonable. I think it was even though, in Doug's terms, I'm a generally conservative guy who DOES worry, a lot, that "the freedom of speech is under attack by the woke crowd of overly sensitive liberal snowflakes." I live in the never-never world of AOC and NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio so I'm primed to push back at a lot of what I consider social justice overreaches.

But not this one, especially not once the Feminazi comments started. You weren't the only one, but this was your thread and you carried the torch.

I also disagree this was a constructive dialogue. I think it dragged all of us down and probably didn't change any minds.

But I have few regrets. I may have lost some friends but given what I read here in the past few days, if I have, then they're not the men I thought they were.

BTW, This discussion is poised to, in a few hours, move into 9th place on the list of Top Ten RAS Discussions in the past 12 months (and likely for 2020). That is a remarkably depressing fact and one I would never have thought possible.

Chip Bearden
JB