Pat, but there isn't a "we" who can all know it and do it at the same time. I feel the same way toward tyou, about you, as you say about me, toward me... but see, you aren't allowing for the reality factor, or you would not have so much trouble remembering what you meant to do when your buttons get pushed. See?

Sure, ignoring them works, if you know in advance who is trolling and who is not, and if you can "make" everyone else do it too. A general attitude about not responding, YES, this is possible. But you just have to see each thing as clearly as possible and do what you can in that moment....

BUT-- I REALLY think the basic problem we are having here, to address Jon's question, is that we have two paradigms. And not for the Mudcat, but for life itself.

One is the paradigm, "Live and Let Live."

The other is "Control and Submit to Control."

Now it is often ugly how these get expressed, FROM each viewpoint TO the OTHER one. We have people proselytizing for both of these, from both seides of the "What Is Mudcat" divide. I say proselytizing in all the ugliness that word means to most Mudcatters.... and it's rigid, it's stuck, and it's not working. Saying that is not a blame thing-- just an observation-- that we all seem to keep falling into the sh*t pit, however we get there, and we climb out, over and over again.

But we do it as individuals. One can look at it as a systemic problem but Mudcat, even more than anywhere else I know in life, is individuals, dimly seen and only in cross-section.

~Susan