First off I would like to remind us of the very first words of this post. Dulcimer said: "Don't want to open any heated debate or wounds among fellow Mudcatters, but..."

I did try to return the thread to it's original subject and not to take sides and make it worse, but it does now seem to have returned the level a sensible debate and at the risk of inflating it again, I shall put my size 10's in. The post was about songs and Sapper's post was to the effect that he was not happy having to listen to song supporting "that cowardly band of thugs". Now surely we can all accept that, any of us hearing a song in praise of what we considered to be murderous thugs, would be a little uncomfortable?

The difficulty comes when one persons idea of murderous thugs, is another's idea of brave freedom fighters. That however was not what this thread was about, it was about songs.

Mick

I have come to like you very much and have respected your strongly expressed opinions, for all the time I have been here. I do not always agree with them, but over time you can see more of a person that they can ever express in one or two short postings. I know your heart to be big enough and in the right place, and that makes up for the fact that your foot sometimes isn't, not that you are alone it that. Judging people on a few postings is perilous, but that is what you have done with Sapper, on just about his introduction to the forum. His subsequent reply shows that he can certainly defend himself, so I will not attempt to do that for him. I certainly hope he stays around, to add to all our debates, but other less robust souls probably wouldn't and that would have been The Mudcat's loss.

Sapper did not start the personal insults and cheap jokes, Mick, you did. If, as Kat say's, you considered his remarks were more "inflammatory" than we usually use here, then I think that could have been gently pointed out to a relative new recruit, rather than 'going for the throat'. To me just about the only 'crime' here, is to do something that may discourage someone from posting. The best way to deal with those, who from time to time, deliberately want to insult and disrupt, is to ignore them, their views and when they do not 'get a bite', they will go away and fish other waters.

There does seem to be an almost automatic reaction in us, to some views. Sometimes to what we THINK is being said rather than what actually IS being said. I know this to be the case with me and the best course of action, I have found in these cases is to take NO action. To sleep on it and then decide.

To return to the subject of the thread. It is interesting that most of the conversation has been to avoid un-appropriate material, rather than moving toward our strength and my personal hope for the future, The universal language of music.

The songs and music that can unite us all, rather than the ones that divide .

Mick and Bob

I hope you will let me join your pub session, we can get 'rat-assed', sing, play and argue all night. If we don't know what to sing, we could surely give this one a go, as a start? Bumbling Englishman.