Let me start by saying I was quoting your whole post but had to chop it out so that my post would fit (darned 10000 character rule).....
I understand English perfectly well. I also do not sit around as you say "looking to be offended".
It appears it is you who do not get it, so I will clarify things for you, which usually, like Starter who is one of the fairest people I have met on this board in the last 10+ years I have been here (and I said and felt that before I became a Mod 2 years ago) I like to do by PM but since you like to make a habit of calling out moderators in public I will spell it out for you publicly.
1) You (and I) have the right to free speech and all that goes with that. That said, posting on this forum is a privilege, not a right.
2) You have the right to disagree with any member of this forum, moderators and administrators included.
3) You have the right to voice your opinion about any topic that comes up on this forum. That said, just like with free speech in life, exercising that right doesn't mean that there are not possible consequences to that. Say something that your boss at work doesn't like and see what happens. You have the right to say it, he has the right to show you the door.
4) You even have the right to question, privately, something a moderator does or doesn't do. Keep in mind that you don't have all the information at your disposal. How do you know that nothing happened because a post didn't get edited or someone got banned.
This forum has a points system, people can get sanctioned and you won't know a thing about it unless the person who got his hand slapped wants to tell you about it.
5) You do not have the right to publicly call out a moderator for the discipline that gets handed out (or not) to others. That's pretty much standard at every forum that I have ever belonged to, which is a few. In most places the violation for this is an instant ban. But since I can't seem to find the Forum rules page (I guess it didn't migrate with us to the new server somehow) I
choose not to ban you right here and now (and not for your response to my post-I had some of that coming, more on that below). Now I can't guarantee someone else won't, but I won't, not now. Seeing that you have good taste in movies, anyway.
Those 5 points, although they are contained in a post directed at you janvanvurpa, are for EVERYBODY's benefit (hint, hint).
I do apologize for doing a horrible job in getting my point across in my previous post. Personally I couldn't care less what you think about me carrying guns and all that. It's not personal at all. In fact, even though you didn't seem understand what I was really trying to say, you kinda illustrated my point for me by saying that my post shows that I am "looking to be offended". I'm not "truly" offended by what you said about people being simplistic and the like. Unfortunately, there are people who are. I was only trying to illustrate what can happen in those instances and it looks pretty silly to see it when people are, doesn't it? Yet is that not exactly what one is doing when they complain about "implied insults"?
I don't know about other mods, but I don't usually go around sanctioning everyone for a sideways word here or a little nudge there. I kinda like reading some of it, brightens my day a little bit. One of my fav's is when someone says something, another person comes back and days something to the effect that "You're dead wrong about that" and the OP reports the response and cries "he insulted me, ban him for life, why won't you do something about him!!! (don't laugh I see that AT LEAST once a week around here). I usually go after people who cusses someone out (******'s included) or blatantly tells them to shut up, that they or their opinion are worthless, questions their ancestry and the like.
It looks even sillier, though, when a person reads that,then turns around and insults them farther. Nowhere in your post that I quoted to start this one did I see where the words idiot,moron, or stupid were directed at me, and props to you for that. However, if I wanted to be a little more of a butthole about it saying things like "is that tooooooooooooooooo hard for you to understand?" could be construed as going down that road. Try to be more careful please. One last thing. Keep the nationalistic insults to yourself. Another longstanding member got smoked for that in the not too distant past.
And yes, your post made me go back and read the whole other thread again. I shouldn't have used the word "only" when describing you and the insults. I was mainly scanning through looking at what Starter had to say since that was the whole point of this thread, and your interaction with him. And yes there were other issues in that thread and they have been dealt with by Mark himself and the thread has been locked. As I said above, you may not know it or be able to see it, but it has been. So I won't be dealing with that anymore.
Now all of you can see why I stay out of chit chat for the most part. Too many world views on what usually are local problems cause too many headaches, and what I as an American may feel is right someone in England or Finland may think is completely daft. This is
http://www.motorsportforums.com and I come here to talk about motorsports, primarily NASCAR, Indy Car, and Formula 1. I choose to stay out of the political arena as much as possible and only mentioned my stance on guns to illustrate a point. I am neither Conservative or Liberal, and have voted for members of both major parties for various offices to include President. That does not mean that I don't have strongly held views on different topics, whether that be abortion, taxes, big or small government (etc). I just don't see where me talking about that helps much when I want to talk about racing.
I usually only end up in chit chat now-a-days when I am investigating a reported post and no other Mods seem to be around right that minute.
Now, about Starter himself. I meant what I said above. For those of you who haven't been around long, Starter had the unenviable task of moderating the Indy Car forum back when Champcar and the IRL were getting ready to merge back together. It was real ugly back then, made the Chit Chat forum look like a kindergarten playground. He had to ban many many people, then lead the remaining members into the combined Indy Car forum, where things run pretty smoothly now. Yep he has opinions, too. And although I don't agree with all of them I got his back. If y'all don't like that, I wish I could help you, but I can't, not with that deal. It has absolutely zero to do with the fact that we are Americans, either. Anyone who intimates that is dead wrong. Ask Pino and Mark, they will tell you that and last time I checked they live on the east side of the Atlantic Ocean.
I thought about locking this thread, but what good would it do, someone will only start another thread saying that I don't have the right to come to Starter's defense because I am a moderator and not entitled to my opinion and that I shouldn't have locked it to start with (etc, etc, etc). Am I wrong?
I will close by saying I apologize for any misspellings or missing letters in this post. I am smarter than I type, believe me. It has taken the better part of 2 hours to type this, much to my wife's chagrin so if it makes any of you feel better, she is now pissed at me.