Ric wrote:
> >You should know that I received some messages from several lurkers on
> >the list giving sympathy to my position, but, again, that position was
> >never against you or my opponents or those of NFL...

> I invite these lurkers to step out into the open and speak their mind.

Personally I was highly offended by much of what Ric wrote but wasn't sure
what type of response was appropriate, especially since Peter asked that
we end the thread.  Also I had very little interest in getting into a
dialogue with him.

IMO Ric is more of a zealot than NFL.  Trying to convince him of their
zealotry was hence pretty much a waste of time.

His diatrabs against "the government" and Bill Clinton really bothered me.
I didn't keep the post but he said something along the lines of he had
friends who knew Bill Clinton in Arkansas and they told him all kinds of
stuff about how evil the Clintons were.  I just wonder how Ric chooses his
friends.  Did it ever occur to him that these friends might not be honest,
that they might be making stuff up to persue their own personal agendas or
simply out of misplaced anger and jealousy?  How someone who claims to be
all for love and peace can accept this stuff so easily is beyond me.

I perceived a strong streak of bigotry and hatred in Ric in his commenst
about the government.  As a society (in the U.S. at least) we have sort of
learned that bigoty and racism against blacks, jews, foreigners,
homosexuals, non-christians, etc is not fully acceptable.  However the
internal unresolved psychological issues which lead to bigotry and hatred
are still there.  So "the government" is developing as a focus of this
hatred.  So that was Ric's focus.  Believing all kinds of unsubstantiated
or clearly false rumours about the government and then trying to get us to
join in a crusade against it.  What exactly fighting the government
entails isn't clear.  But it was this same type of thinking that motivated
Tim McVeigh to blow up that office building in Oklahoma City.  (Ric's
assertion that there was a government conspiracy behind this was
absolutely bizarre.)

So Ric seemed to be advocating that we forget our differences with NFL and
that we all join together to fight some imaginary evil of his.  And maybe
the people who represent this imaginary evil to us will see us as
representing some other imaginary evil.  Then we can have a war.  We can
kill them to make the world a better place.  They can kill us to make the
world a better place.  Not meaning to be facetious here but this is what a
lot of wars are about.

And yeah, Ric came across as a real nice guy.  That's how racism works.
You take your unresoved anger and transfer it to some specific group. Then
you can be nice to everyone else.  When that anger wells up you just take
it out on the scapegoat group.  The Nazis were generally very nice and
polite to their family, friends, and other "aryans".  All kinds of
religous and political extremists are very nice and friendly to the others
in their group.  Its just if you are not in their group you are in
trouble.  Apparently Ric saw us as being part of his group, thats all.

Mike