Last personal open letter to ML

Mark,

I have given you three days to think about what you and I wrote on Friday
night, hoping that you would calm down from a totally unnecessary anger and
finally get my point.  Considering the amount of insults and false assumptions
concerning my character you conveyed to this list or via private e-mail to me,
I assume that you haven't regained your peace of mind yet.  Thus it might be
somehow difficult for you to grasp what I am writing about here, but I feel
nevertheless compelled to end this stupid flame war right now and not later on.

The problem you have during discussions here on the list (and maybe also in the
rest of your life) is that you are totally confusing eloquence and reasoning.
Indeed, given the rhetoric skills you are lucky to have, it is not very
difficult to declaim nonsense and make it sound good.  Politicians are often a
shining example for behaviour like this when they want to veil their own
ignorance.  While it sometimes really can be fun to use one's eloquence just to
talk rubbish, this attitude is completely inappropriate in a serious
discussion.  However, it happens to be your style.  To make things worse, you
are also adding new distracting topics and personal allusions every now and
then which results in completely useless exchanges of long sermons that
completely miss the discussion's point.

I am not the first lister here to make this observation.  Ask Ian and Scott
about your `Gospel, Jazz, and Blues' thread or Mark S.E. about your `Pot'
thread.

While it might be fun for you to ruin discussions the way you do, it isn't for
others who are serious about the topic in question.  There are two consequences
of your behaviour:  a) Less and less people take your arguing serious at all -
you are losing your base of credibility.  b) Sometimes discussions run out of
your control which causes you to reassure all listers of your friendship - an
act that can easily be understood as cowardly, since you don't hesitate to
continue your style of respectless arguing as soon as you think no one is angry
with you.

In our case, you went over the top.  You didn't keep the discussion a
reasonable one but were turning it into an attempt to spread a caricature of my
personal attitude and my character all over your notes to the list - not only
over those that were addressed to me, but also over others that had nothing to
do with me at all.  I don't regret that I became angry with you because of
this, as well as I don't regret that you misunderstood my point and went into a
tirade of insults.  This was a healthy way to end a useless discussion, maybe
the best way for you to learn something from it.

The only thing I regret is that I continued the discussion beyond the point
where it became obvious that your aim wasn't to find some common sense but
merely to provoke me.  Well, I did it nevertheless, and I took some damage
since one can never throw mud without becoming dirty.  But after your tirade of
insults, it seems like you have taken more damage which somehow puts things
right again.

Anyway, I have learned something from this exchange.  In any future discussion
with you, I will simply ignore everything which doesn't belong to the topic,
and I will explicitly list everything I ignore in an appendix to my message,
thus indicating how much rubbish you tend to bring into a simple discussion.
Maybe this will help you to realize how a reasonable discussion has to be
proceeded.

Having said this, I have no bad feelings left.  I forgive you, but I will
handle you with care from now on.  I invite you to as many future discussions
as my time allows, preferably about The Who.

Thanks for your attention.  Don't expect anything from trying to comment the
above - these are my last words on this topic, and I will ignore any attempt to
question them.

Cheers,

Bernd --- `No one can love without the grace of some unseen and distant face'


P.S.:  Some comments on your assumptions concerning my character.  (1) It isn't
very wise to question my intellect.  I might want to challenge you, and then
you could have a hard time.  (2) I'm everything but a paper tiger.  People who
know me could speak volumes about how I never avoid any conflict.  (3) I am not
proud of anything in my life except for the fact that I get along with it quite
well.  Pride isn't my style.  (4) I don't use any drugs because, due to a
physical problem, I have to be very careful about anything which might cause
addiction.  Nothing would have been greater at the Molly Wee than having a beer
with Bob, Mick, or Tom, but I think it was wise for me to stay abstinent.
(5)  I hate Pepsi.  There are only very few things tasting worse in this world.