Mark:
>Still, I like the unmoderated approach for a number of reasons, one of the
>main ones being that I trust the ability of people to recognize fanaticism
>and hatred when they see it.

Well I also thought that would work. I joined the email forum that Tom
mentioned on 10/2/1997. I wrote an introduction about my eating style
(instinctive eating including all sorts of natural foods) and was
heavily
attacked by the listowner and a lunatic listmember which I knew to be
a
relative of the listowner.

So this odd couple attacked me for mentioning that I include animal
products in my diet. By the way, you, Mark, were a member of this
forum at
that time too. I've got a post from 10/19/97 of you in my folder.

I'll give an example of the type of communication on that forum here:

Stefan:
>Also humans were scavengers who collected RAF (raw animal food) where
>they found it. Scavenged meat was precut by the predator which hunted it.

Raving lunatic on other email forum:
>This belief, although common, is nonsense.  Have you ever smelled an
>animal corpse after it has putrefied for a few hours??  The rotting
>protein odor universally caused nausea and a distinct revulsion. To posit
>that primitive Man was a scavenger is totally without any foundation. In
>fact, this universal human revulsion for rotting copses is an INSTINCT
>that protects the human from consuming such highly toxic material.  There
>are true scavengers who are attracted to rotting flesh, but the ape-man is
>not one.  Are YOU instinctively attracted to rotting flesh??

These and other hateful posts mostly from the list owner and his
relative
created an atmosphere of fear where almost no other members tried to
comment the subject. Some of them did but were very cautious with what
they
said, not to attract the attention of the odd lunatic pair. Some
mailed me
privately to tell me that they agreed with me but couldn't say so
publicly
on this forum.

I finally left this bad forum in February 1998 because of the hostile
and
zealous behavior of the list owner and his relative which made an open
discussion impossible. In fact there was not much discussion in this
forum
and I was always under the impression that people held back their true
opinion to prevent attacks from the hostile couple.

You can't be tolerant towards the intolerant, Mark. Else they will
exploit
your tolerance until there's nothing left.

Best raw wishes,

Stefan

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