"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...

Jim's upset because he is a staunch ultra conservative. He believes
that when people post
"I think my steer is a liberal because he has no balls" (from earlier
in this thread) or "Illegal aliens and their supporters dare attack the
real Americans" those threads should be left on the rec.boats subject
board in the interest of "freedom of choice" about
what to read. Although Jim and I *agree* that everybody should be free
to post and read what they want- we disagree that in a newsgroup
universe composed of dedicated sites for different interests each and
every newsgroup must then function as a dumping ground for every
political message, all the hateful propaganda, etc, that happens along.
I believe that if you want to read the latest messages from Al Gore,
Hillary Clinton, the ACLU, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, or the KKK
there are plenty of sites where that material is freely available and
where posts of the same sort of material would be appropriate. It also
makes sense that people seeking out a boating newsgroup are doing so
with a reasonable expectation of finding boating related material, not
the rare boating related item buried among piles of chatroom nonsense,
political cut 'n pastes, and years-long peeing contests between the
same 2-3 individuals.

I overestimated either the readership of the NG or the cleverness of
turning these OT, cross-posted, disruptive and divisive propagada items
into boating related subjects having to do with 1) dealing with sewage,
2) taking care not to track things back to the boat on your shoes.
(Some of the participants in this group apparently engage or support
these crossposters on other forums, which is how rec.boats gets added
to the multiple cross post list for disseminating propaganda).
Obviously at least a few people missed it. So "Whoosh", big time, but
perhaps the fault was my own.

Anyway, I do plan to continue harrassing the crossposters. If that
upsets a few people who would prefer to see the cross-posted stuff on
rec.boats, so be it. Plenty of people consider me a major a-hole as it
is, so a few more voices in the "Gould's an a-hole" choir are
meaningless.

And it's not like I don't have some empathy. For a group of people who
aren't really very interested in boating the major attraction of the NG
has long been "it's a good place to go pick a fight about politics, or
engage in a personal peeing contest". It's easy to see how discouraging
the OT political stuff "ruins" the group as far as they are concerned.

Those who believe that changing a cross-posted political or hate
message to a boating related topic, (even if it's a silly one), does
more "damage" to the NG than the cross-posting itself are entitled to
their opinions. I'm entitled to mine. Nobody is expected to agree all
the time, and I have never been one to form an opinion based upon how
many people happen to agree with me.

While I admire Chuck Gould's generosity in volunteering to be the newsgroup
shepherd, I think his services are not needed, unless we're the idiots he
thinks we are.