Coyote said:
Please. Spare us the disingenuous claims of innocence.
You: let’s see how close I can get to the line by a accusing members of being pedo without quite literally saying the P word.
Play with fire, you are going to get burned.
Generally speaking, that whole use of ''close to the line'' language is a slippery slope and normalizes collective acceptance that mauderation may perform maud actions without being bound by the chains of the rules themselves, but rather quite literally upon their feelings, should one so arbitrarily choose. It's quite literally placing the rules themselves aside in order to interject and stop one from taking dialogue where one may arbitrarily feel or perceive that one may be going if one does not personally agree that a given discussion should go in said direction, irrelevant of the broad nature of much of th topical content. Perception, of course, can be and often is mediated by one's own worldview and/or any entities/special interests which may have groomed that worldview. And therein lies the major malfunction. This is where it becomes personal rather than clerical. Here it becomes "Shut up! Listen!"
You either break a rule or you don't. It really is that simple.
The rules as they are written ARE the line.
To try to establish some arbitrary territory around that line is placing the line...the rules themselves as they are written... aside and can and does at times place the core template secondary to arbitrarily enforcing one's own worldview or perception onto others and serves largely as a utility which may or may not be incorporated to steer a discussion where one personally wants it to go (if one is functioning more so along the lines of a dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking, underhanded activist rather than a board clerk)
To quote the late Carl Sagan...''If we are not allowed to ask skeptical questions...to interrogate those who tell us that something is true...to be skeptical of those in authority....then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan who comes hambling along.''
Does anyone at all disagree with him? I sure don't. I think he nailed it.
Placing that aside, I will end with this. Until people learn to do dangerous things. To demonstrate courage to say dangerous things others may find uncomfortable. They will never in any way be seen as dangerous or as a threat to anyone or any entity who would put you in chains to empower themselves. Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not any day. One does not and should not ever sacrifice and relinquish a legitimate perspective in order to placate the feelings of others. Their feelings are unimportant. And that's quite literally what that arbitrary ''close to the line'' language encourages people to do. To shut up and just listen. Where one ''feels'' that you may be taking the discussion, whther they find that direction uncomfortabe or not, is just...like..their opinion, man.
That doesn't mean to break rules. But that doesn't mean to be fearful of crossing some arbitrary circle drawn around a legitimate line in some arbitrary way after the fact either.