Relationships between a man and his wife, or between a woman and her husband, are between them. I certainly wouldn't change my behavior for someone who doesn't know either of us well enough to have a reasonable opinion.
Agree with this part. I like the simple rules here. No use having dozens of rules if none is enforced except, "Don't offend anyone who will report you to the authorities." . Pretty soon you end up with a forum of squeaky wheels.
In real life, or at least when real life worked better, people work most problems out amongst themselves. When people call the police every time a neighbor offends them, then you don't have a healthy community.
I'm not a trouble maker, just have a very curious mind and wonder what folks think about certain things. Of course, some things can be very controversial and that's when the problems can start. Not everyone thinks the same way, but there are those that can get very defensive over what is being stated. Some people will completely defend what they believe in and don't want to hear the other side, even if there is another side. Some will say this or that is everywhere, but then again, those people haven't been "everywhere" in order to make that conclusion.
So, Ken, just what do you do when the neighbor doesn't want to cooperate and says "get out of my face"? What about the person who refuses to "work things out"? What about those that simply refuse to understand how the OP feels?
I really enjoy discussing almost anything, especially with another person who has an open mind and can see more than one possibility for the topic being discussed. However, I really dislike arguments, and usually, when the other person is close-minded to any other opinion than their own, it doesn’t matter what facts you might present, they are not ever going to consider the possibility, or change their mind about what they think. In that case, I just usually say what I think, why I think that, and then let it go and move on to something else, and save my actual discussions for someone who wants to discuss a topic and not just argue their point. Rudeness is even worse, and since it tends to mean that the person has no good facts to present, and they are simply attacking the person instead of the topic, there is totally no sense wasting my time when that happens, so I leave as fast as I can, whether in person or on a forum.
Ok, Yvonne, what about those folks who either weren't raised to be open-minded or just plainly don't want to be that way. I don't think everyone should, or wants to, accept everything that goes on in society. People in big cities do things that farm and ranch folks would never think about doing. Folks who attend church have their own opinions/dislikes about certain things, that folks that don't attend church disagree with quite often. Anyway, when a thread or reply is done by a person who isn't open-minded to certain things, I don't think that person should be criticized for not wanting to be open-minded about something, but understood why they aren't open-minded. I think both the open-minded folks and the ones who state they are not open-minded should try to understand each other sides...…….but, most of the time, that is extremely difficult to do. The old questions of, "why don't you believe in this" and "why should I believe in this" come to mind. Both have their reasons for how they think.
A good spirited discussion is a great thing to have. It's healthy and informative. We are fortunate to have the ability to open most anything for discussion here. Most people can discuss .. but there are some who insist on confrontation and always being right. Then it is no longer a discussion .. it is a bully session and a fight. Anyone should be able to contribute their take on something without having to be attacked for their opinion. We all the right to have an opinion .. no need to challenge someone who does not agree with you .... and most certainly no need to insult anyone. If a discussion is allowed to mature on it's own, without concern of being steamrolled, you would be surprised at how many more participants would jump in. Many are open to discussing many things and a quite a few will go away from the discussion with a slightly new look on the topic .. they may not totally agree with it but it could shed new light and most importantly it gets people communicating. When someone comes in and begins slinging insults it becomes a battlefield and that was not the intention of the OP and the only thing people learn is that there is a bully in the midst who won't allow others to their own opinions ... everybody loses.
Of course they do ! That is the garbage drain. New information comes in, gets filtered, and garbage goes out down the drain. In a closed mind, nothing new can get in, and all of that garbage is just trapped in there, for ever and ever.
That means that there is a certain amount of America that has "garbage trapped in them"? Like I've already stated, Yvonne, not everyone in America is open-minded and wants to accept different things. When I lived in both Los Angeles County and Orange County, Calif., I seen a lot of that open-minded stuff. I spent most of my weekends in Riverside County, which wasn't nearly as open-minded. When I'd go to Norco, in Riverside County, for a Jackpot Roping or Horse Sale/Auction, I never saw/heard stuff that would be considered open-minded, until folks from Orange Country started moving there. Those folks wanted, actually darn near demanded, Norco be changed to look like a city in Orange County. Norco locals resisted and partly won. The folks from Orange County even wanted to stop the major rodeo Norco had each year, that I was a part of also. Good thing was, the rodeo still goes on there. Like I have already stated, not everyone likes, or wants, to be open-minded and that's the way Norco and parts of Riverside County was and still is. The big cities of Colorado, as in The Springs and Denver are mostly open-minded, but those are areas we'd never live in.