Terry,
Ever since our run-in a few months ago I have made a conscious effort both to react less passionately when posting here and to mostly avoid responding to you. However, the past few days have revealed a lot to me.
First, your question was intentionally worded in a “Do you still beat your wife” format. This is your modus operandi. You wanted to get a rise out of people. Congratulations, you did. But I would like to say that when people point out the flaw in your logic, as TR did, it is not that they are attempting to avoid answering your question. TR did answer your question; you just didn’t like the response. BTHOB answered your question directly and succinctly. I do hope you will accept that.
Second, you claim that you do not resort to ad hominem attacks. I disagree. Although your attacks usually take the form of the logical fallacies of straw men, hasty generalizations, poisoning the well, appeals to consequence and the occasional post hoc ergo propter hoc, your comments are worded in a way that is obviously meant as digs at those with whom you disagree. I do know the definition of ad hominem. The comments that Opie pointed out in another thread (“can’t get past college,” etc.) are definitely attacks on the person, not the viewpoint. See your last post on the “Howd [sic] Bonfire last so long?” thread for multiple examples these attacks and breakdowns in logic.
Third, you are a smart guy. Aside from some misspellings and punctuation errors (whose posts don’t have those?), your posts tend to be well written. Certainly someone as intelligent as you has better things to do than stir up the muck on this board, right? I know, you think you are helping these people with a little dose of reality.
Let me help you with some, as well. When people get out of school and get jobs they will realize how much of a help or a waste of time Bonfire was. Some will realize that it hurt their grades and kept them from achieving all of the goals they set for themselves. Others they will find that they learned skills that are directly relevant to the things they want to do in the future. Some may even find that the hard work they put into Bonfire helped them to focus on school and their grades even improved. Most will find that they have made life-long friends. A few will have met their spouses through Bonfire. What Bonfire means to each individual, and the relevance that Bonfire has to the post-college experience, are as individual as the people who participated, didn’t participate, wish they had participated, or didn’t even know what Bonfire was.
I think this is true for all of the traditions at A&M. I recently made a trip back for a football game. As I have gotten older my opinions of some of the traditions I loved when a student have changed. I hate yell practice, yells and yell leaders. I know they are tradition, but I find them to be kind of dumb. I hate that we sing the second verse of the War Hymn for every game, and never the first verse. I would love to get past the “t.u. is the only game that matters” attitude. We have a world-class athletic program. I’d love for us to start acting like it. These are my opinions, but you won’t find me on other boards spouting them. Do you know why? It’s because I have better and more important things with which to fill my time.
I, for one, don’t care if you have enough free time to come post on this board. I won’t ask you to leave or shut up. I do ask that you be as respectful of others as you ask for them to be of you. Respect must be earned; it cannot be demanded. If you can dish it out, expect to get some in return.
Kip
