Intergalactic Summit

As much as I value our allies, I must say that their ways baffle me, though, of course, the Admiral is correct.

I was hoping you'd bring this up.

Yes, I am employing what is generally termed as ad hominem attacks. Basically it means that I attack your character rather than the substance of your argument. Problem is, there isn't any substance to any of your arguments.



Ah, here we go.

Here's why I made those "anti-feminist" statements against you, aside from the obvious and previously mentioned motivation of trolling: You are very clearly angry. Frothing at the mouth, bulging artery at the temple, seeing red, eyes bulging, bitterly angry. And that anger doesn't come from nowhere. It doesn't just come from a hatred of my culture, or rather your twisted and misinformed horror-reel vision of my culture. This is pathological. Something happened in your past to make you angry, and its probably very justified. And we are the proxies for that anger, stoked by political manipulation for your likely legitimate anger and whipped up to a cult-like fervor, and we have where we are now. Irrational, hypocritical, bitter anger.

That is abuse. Demanding that a people abandon their culture simply because you believe yours is superior to theirs is not only a judgment you have no right to make, it is tyrannical, oppressive and abusive.



Again you attack my culture, as you have done repeatedly with every statement you make. As for your last statement? The willingness to back something up does not negate it as name-calling or petulance.

You're not.




Yes, it is utterly arrogant for her to consider that you might actually have a legitimate reason to display the hostility and demeaning behavior that you have consistently displayed throughout this discussion. How completely obnoxious that she would even suggest that there might be something else to pinpoint your aggression on.

So, let me get this straight...you would be this aggressive, insulting, demeaning and yes angry with a rabid dog, or something you describe as a nuisance?

You have consistently displayed absolutely no desire to talk, rather to continue to spout why you perceive the State and the Caldari people as an evil, regressive, oppressive, abusive, cruel and demented establishment and culture. You ignore every attempt to explain to you why you are misunderstanding things.

I have lost the desire to speak with you because I can no longer do so with decency. At this point, I am prone to engaging you in the same bitter hostility that you have shown me time and again throughout this discussion and I refuse to do so.

I wouldn't say the State is a rabid dog. More like a dog that has issues with being told what to do and how it should be a dog.





The Caldari and Gallente can live in peace. My home is a testament to that. However, trying to force someone to abandon their culture does tend to put a strain on any relationship. How would you feel if I told you that starting tomorrow you had to renounce everything that you hold dear and conform to my wishes? I doubt you would appreciate that, no? Effectively to many Caldari that is what the Federation did many years ago, and it is not something easily forgotten.

Ethnocentrism is good. Spirits know I love my people and culture, my traditions and ways.

Rabid, foaming, "I am right!" ethnocentrism is not. It is just scary.

Ms. Erena, maybe back away and cool off a bit... yeah, pot calling kettle black. Trust me, arguments are best entered into with a cool head, not full of emotion. You will say less things you regret.

You still continue to drone on....

I could sit here and argue with you for the rest of our unnatural lives and we would never reconcile our viewpoints. I could also take your stance and point out all the evils, injustices, inequities and failures that I perceive in your beloved Federation. Yet I have consciously chosen not to because my involvement in this thread has been to discuss Caldari culture and values.

You simply choose to disagree with them. Your presentation is hostile, confrontational and aggressive but the core is the same. You disagree with our culture and you view it as inferior to your own.

Good for you. We disagree fundamentally with one another. I am done trying to rectify that.

I agree Eywa, it is essentially what I stated from the start before this mess began. I apologize for contributing to the derailment of the thread.

This statement is way too broad and vague to actually be corrected or not.

I'll use your statement as a springboard to contribute my own rambling thoughts, if you don't mind:

The Minmatar are not a unified people. Those in Amarrian bondage and those who are free exist on difference sides a fence and represent two entirely separate groups. Being an ally to one does not preclude being an ally to both. No-one will become my enemy simply because they do not engage in the enterprise of freeing slaves.

I have been on both sides of this fence--a fence I would have never been able to jump if I had not been prepared to die if I failed to jump high enough. Granted, my foray into the next pasture over would have been very short-lived if there had not been hands waiting to catch me, but I did not know they were there at the time. The State is no different from the Republic itself in that we can wait for the leapers and perhaps even lower the fence, but there is nothing in the universe we can do to persuade people to jump.

At this point in time, the fence is lower and there are more helping hands than ever before. Amarr space is riddled with SOE establishments and countless anti-slavery ships do business with the core worlds of Domain every single day. This is no secret. Any group of slaves who can make it to a docking port nowadays is practically guaranteed a free pass out of the Empire. So why aren't they? Simply put: because they are slaves.

I did not become a free man by jumping over a fence (this is a metaphor, remember). I became a free man by deciding to risk it all to try. If I had died in the attempt, I would have died a free man...or boy, at least. If, by contrast, someone had come into my quarters one day, shepherded me into a hauler, given me a new life, and told me to be free, I would still be very much a slave.

There was a time when the Minmatar people were united in their resolve to jump the fence. The Federation aided them immensely, but the Federation did not give them the will to be free. That came from themselves, just as it will have to today. If that happens, I'll be on my way to Penirgman with a Battle Mammoth lickety-split. At the moment though, my distant cousins in bondage simply value their lives too much. As long as they are content enough in slavery that they won't risk their lives to escape it, there is nothing I can do for them. It would, I believe, be a disservice to make the executive decision to risk their lives for them.

All this is to say that I question many of the efforts put forth by the Republic itself to turn slaves into free men and women, and my personal involvement with the venture is almost as hands-off as that espoused here by the WHG. It isn't my fight either...at least not until the people on whose behalf I would be fighting send a signal. If they do, I'll offer a helping hand. Other hands will be appreciated, but not expected...and never demanded.