Monday, June 12, 2006

Debate degenerates

Sue Bradford says the Section 59 debate is getting ugly and she is receiving abusive e-mails. If they get worse she says she will involve the police.

Abusive e-mails are sent by bullies and cowards and, as much as I dislike Sue Bradford's politics, I see no justification for this sort of tactic. Sue and I have met on a number of occasions and she is always civil and respectful. No purpose is served by politics getting personal.

OK, from time to time I might go overboard with a post but generally I try to stick to playing the ball. It's good discipline because without insults your arguments are all you have. They have to stand up.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Demonizing your opponent by claiming to have received abusive letters is straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.

If these letters do exist they are just as likely to come from supporters of Sue Bradford and were written to discredit her opponents.

I know that trick and loath it.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I have blogged before about how she gives added publicity to rabid stuff to gain advantage (she thinks);http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.
com/2006/02/how-extremists-damage-
causes.html

Hadn't considered they might actually be making it up themselves.

Anonymous said...

Anything is possible but then one should throw out accusations without proof as well. And I have seen the material that her opponents put out and some of it is very dishonest and nasty. If I had to lay odds on this I would bet that some fundamentalists have sent her abusive emails. These kind are known for it and this is one of their major issues right now. So unless Andrej has evidence, and not just theories, I would have to go with the odds and say she is telling the truth. So the ball is in your court Andrej. Do you have hard evidence that this was done or is this just paranoia, suspicion, projection, or whatever?

Unknown said...

Anon - do you realize how funny talking about paranoia, suspicion, projection, or whatever is from an anonymous source? :D

Scotty said...

I would fit into the 'fundamentalist Christian' camp. I do not threaten people with abusive emails.

If people are 'fundamentalist Christians' they would be acting contrary to their beliefs if they did so.

It is also interesting to note that the abusive letters are not one sided. My Pastor Peter Boyd who has recently been in the Herald over the smacking issue has just received a rather emotionally charged email from an atheists. (The guys email address goes with a website and was bone fide.)

Lindsay - I agree let's stick to playing ball....all sides.

blog owner said...

Actually what I find funny is liq374 lecturing someone for posting an anonymous message when liq374 is the equivalent of being anonymous since not even his web page identifies who he is. In addtion his comments are just not applicable. And contrary to liq374 assertions the anonymous most listed as numerous potential things without specifying any. After all how do you accuse someone of "whatever".

Anonymous said...

I can understand people getting angry about this issue though. Responsible parents smack their children and it's not child abuse. Why should responsible parents be penalised because some parents with no conscience smack the hell out of their kids?

Gloria