[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Oh, I understand it perfectly, and my blood pressure is just fine and normal. I understand that you are urging patience and prudence. What I don't understand is how that makes any difference whatsoever. All you've been doing is repeating yourself and attempting to make your point "simpler," but that was never the problem. In my mind, you're failing to move the discussion forward because, I don't know, you're afraid of argument or something.

Just because I said you were pointless doesn't mean I'm mad. If you want to make me mad, I suppose patronizing me by implying that I'm not thinking straight because of my emotions and that I need to have your point said "simpler" in order to get it will be a good start. Really, you ought not to read more into my posts than exactly what is there because as I'm sure you know, bare-bones text doesn't communicate all that well.

Are my questions really that hard to answer? I can think of a few answers to them myself. Something like, maybe, "We ought to get relief to the victims first and worry about who's to blame later when the facts are clear. Right now, we don't even know the death toll." I don't know that I would have agreed with it, but it's at least something other than repeating the word "patience" over and over again. How much patience do you want? Here's a possible answer: "Enough patience to let a bipartisan commission investigate the events even though that might take a year. It worked out for 9/11."

I've been pressing you because all I wanted was a clear answer on something like that, and I honestly thought you could give me one. Surely you had some real ideas about what having patience would look like. Otherwise, again, what's the point of repeating it? I might as well get up on a box and shout to everybody, "Let's have intelligence! I urge us to be smart!" That simply isn't going to get us anywhere.

I thought I provided more than enough reasons for both sides of the discussion with that link to the BBC article. I'm sorry to patronize you. I shouldn't have even started discussing with you about it because I never meant to have an argument, so it's my fault. You're right, I'm afraid of an argument--on a message board. I get no satisfaction out of it.