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I think you've generalized way too much.

There was a time I felt like you. Now I don't. Now there is not "They" as you have said. There is "All of them who fit the title," but they all act quite differently towards me.

For that reason alone, I cannot agree with you. If you're nice to me, I will be nice to you. That much I firmly believe and I have reason to act nicely to a few prominent ones.

EDIT:

Furthermore, the lockeroom mentality will kill any attempt at intellectualism. Fast.

Who is "they all", kp? How do they "treat" you differently?

And I don't think I've generalized "too much", at all.

I've seen and been around this debate (especially on here) enough to know, it really really doesn't matter. You're pro-life, so you're pretty much everything I am, to them. This is, of course, speaking in extremes. Nicely telling pro-choicers that abortion is wrong, unfortunately, comes across the same way as meanly telling them abortion is wrong. I don't see why we should be nice about it, if we don't want to be, if it's nothing to solve anything.

I'm not proposing this guild become a locker room, but I don't believe pro-lifers should parse their views on abortion and pro-choicers because they're afraid of looking unintelligent. I just think we've wound up circling the block with this entire debate.

...If being nice has the same effect as being mean, why be mean? You know what, though, there is a different effect. No, you're not likely to turn a Pro-Choicer either way. But if you're mean, you make an enemy. If you're nice, you'll find that some of these Pro-Choicers are actual human beings and can be friends.

...Seriously, there's a main subforum, where "parsing your views" on Pro-Choicers is fine. Why do you have to do it in here?

In here, at least, no one is forced to be nice, but everyone is required to "Be Civil". Just about anything on this SubForum that is deleted or changed by Mods is done for violation of the "Be Civil" rule.

Personally, I try to be as nice as I can, because I don't like being mean. When I am mean to people, I feel bad about it later. I don't like feeling bad, so I try to be nice to people. And, often, one finds that being nice to people often encourages them to be nicer to others as well. I like holding the door for people, I try to smile and say, "please" and "thank you". I try to be nice to people in general, because I hope that I help other people have just a little bit nicer day.

When it comes to debating I don't try to be nice, but I do try to be open minded, understanding, and not tread on others feet. I attempt to remain civil and logical if at all possible. And I try to admit when I am wrong, or when someone has changed my views about something. I have found that this allows me to learn so very much about things I didn't understand before. In fact, this approach allowed me to learn so much about this very issue, and led to the opening of this very SubForum.

Now I appreciate that you have made an effort to address your point in a way that conforms to the rules of this SubForum. I think that shows a great effort on your part. But I would like to echo I.Am in questioning why you chose to bring this up in the SubForum but only addressed your post to Pro-Lifers? You would certainly get a much larger response from Pro-Lifers had you posted this in the Main Pro-Life Guild Forum, since not everyone chooses to come in here. I can only assume that you also wanted Pro-Choicers to respond.

As a Pro-Choicer, I certainly appreciate it when Pro-Lifers are nice to me. I try to be nice to them, and respectful even though we don't agree on this issue. I know that there are certainly people on the Pro-Choice side of this issue who don't want to be nice about it. It is such an emotional issue that it isn't easy to be nice, or even civil about it.

Personally, I think that making the effort to be civil (and, for me, to be nice) is worth it. It allows me to debate and discuss an issue that I care deeply about (and many other issues) without it degrading into childish name calling.

Because we don't want to look bad and seem like we are all just crazy. If we are mean, it will just hurt ourside.

If we were rude and keep making generalisations then they are going to think that all pro-lifers are like that and they would keep making generalisations back. Basically we would get nowhere.

You like it when pro-choicers are nice and civil to you, right? As Waters said, they like it when we are nice to them.

I found that people listen to and respect you more when you don't bash their side or be rude. Don't have to agree and you still need facts but debates are much more fun and go more smoothly when people are civil to one other. If you are angry or frustrated, then I suggest you take a break and try to cool down.


I hate it when people are rude to me, it makes it seem like they are negative and not wanting to bother to debate.

I am interested in what they have to do say...which is why I posted it here.



One line of my post was about that post. You can "Be Civil" without rimming your dissenters. And I didn't say anything about being "nasty". I said why go out of our way to be nice and cordial, when they're not that way with us. There's no point.



I don't like it, but I'm over it. I don't get any brownie points for handling a*****e behavior well, so I will when I need to.



I don't care why it was deleted. To be honest, I barely even remember what I said in it. I think a lot it is false compromise, because they don't do it with us, why do it with them? It might sound petty, but I do think we waste time compromising with people who don't want to compromise.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think we're talking about the same thing.

When pro-choicers are nice, it just seems as though they're not douchebags about their opinions, and it's a refreshing change of pace. When we're "nice", we just seem like push-overs, or we compromise getting our point across because we're so worried about delivery.

The problem is, to most of us, the pro-choice position isn't innately offensive. That IS NOT the case for many pro-choices when it comes to pro-life's positions. So when you're dealing with people who already find you offensive, they take advantage of your modesty. They just view you as an easier situation to assert control over. At least if you assert your own right to speak, you don't come away feeling like you've allowed them to run you and the debate. It's easy for that to happen (even if it's not always intentional) because of the ratio of pro-choicers to pro-lifers.