Elephant in the room

There are a couple of things on this thread that have had me thinking real hard. So much so that as I would normally just let sleeping dogs lie, I feel the need to comment on both.  First -

Dave P. wrote:I'm going to be working so I can pay the people that work for me to stay home.  Maybe I can actually get some work done.

Sorry to be cynical, but if you own a small business this stinks.

Given the worldwide scope of the coronavirus pandemic and the impact that it has had on each one of us, this was a pretty self-centered and insensitive thing to say.  To put it into context, the morning I wrote that I had looked at my books for the month to date and found that our gross receipts for the previous three weeks were down nearly 80% from the same period last year.  Two hours before I posted that, my wife and I decided to send everyone home for the duration with full pay and benefits.  We have it covered for a few weeks, but if this goes through early summer, everything we have worked for for the last 35 years is down the tubes.  So I vented here, among my friends.  I didn't intend to minimize the fact that we're all in this and that every one of us is facing some kind of serious fallout.

The second point I would like to make is about Andras' concern that no one took up with him and Kari in their objections to the aforementioned racist comments.  I can only speak for myself, but I've been a member of many different forums since the earliest days of Bulletin Board Systems.  Every single one of them has had trolls.  

A troll is someone that likes to throw the occasional offensive, insulting or provocative stink bomb with the intention of starting a fight.  When someone responds negatively to their post, it's Game On.  You can never win with a troll.  It's like the old saw about wrestling with a pig, you both roll around in the muck and get covered with filth, but the pig likes it.  The troll will always try his best to have the last word and it will almost always be an insult.

I started to respond to the original trolling but in writing my responses was reminded of what I have known now for some time, there's no point.  It only fuels the argument and gives the troll the very attention he so desperately seeks.  I'm very sorry to hear that Kari took our perceived inaction so personally.  That means the troll won.  And trust me, he takes great pride in the fact that he successfully ran a good member off of this forum.  

I don't come to this forum to look for a fight or to engage in political arguments.  Quite the opposite, I come here to escape that kind of thing and enjoy the camaradrie of like-minded Cox enthusiasts and I'm sure that the vast number of other members feel the same.  One of the best things about this forum is the virtual lack of trolls. There have been a few that tried to get our goat, but failed due to the adherence of our membership to the forum rules and the strong enforcement by our moderators.  I would like to thank them for that.

My advice for the reaction to trolls, including this one, is the same as the warning signs you see at zoos and national parks - "Please Don't Feed the Animals".

So please don't take my non-participation in that whole argument as any kind of tacit agreement with the original post.  I just don't feel like wasting good gasoline on a dumpster fire.