Kenneth Purnell is fired in Oregon

[Josh]

Let me be more frank. It's past time for more of us to disengage with Josh until he at least begins to address his misrepresentations and strawmanning.

PeterG,

You seem to have a very serious personal complaint with me, to the point I would say you believe I have a spiritual problem. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.)

I assume both of us are church members, operating under valid authority. Both of us probably think we’re followers of Christ. So let’s start from there.

You have stated multiple times that you basically think I am a liar, which is a very serious accusation. (If you mean something else by “misrepresentation and straw manning”, please correct me.)

Now, you seem to want to start a campaign on MennoNet to try to socially isolate me and get people to “disengage” me. This is a common tactic on the left, and one I think is quite wicked and evil.

If you’d like to just go back to agreeing to disagree and respect each other’s different political opinions, I’d be glad to.

[nett]

This is so silly. I don't know anything about this superintendent but hear he was a good guy. Long-term teacher and administrator in that tiny district and actually anti-mask but stated that they needed to actually comply with state law and do it.

This town is so close to Idaho that you actually have to drive through Idaho to get to it from the rest of the state. It is in Malheur County which has one of the highest Covid positive rates in the country at 112 per 100,000 and a very high positive rate which suggests that is an undercount. That is about the same rate as Alabama which has the second highest Covid rate in the country. If Malheur County was a country it would rank #1 in the globe for highest rate of Covid.

Ken, when even the Atlantic is starting to question your authoritarian religion of masks, it's probably a sign that you've gone completely off the reservation. The narrative is shifting, and the sooner you denounce the false religion of COVID hysteria, the easier it will be on you, I promise.

I was right there too at one time, I bought into the hysteria too, I masked up whenever I went in public, and was terrified of loved ones getting sick, or getting me sick. It was hard to admit that I was wrong, but it was so freeing once I did. The correct side of history is waiting for you with open arms, don't delay

[temporal1]

In the now archived spinoff thread, PeterG explained what he meant by “disengage.”
It was a good explanation. It would be nice to be able to read it here.

[PeterG]

Let me be more frank. It's past time for more of us to disengage with Josh until he at least begins to address his misrepresentations and strawmanning.

PeterG,

You seem to have a very serious personal complaint with me, to the point I would say you believe I have a spiritual problem. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.)

I am completely unqualified to determine or even speculate about whether or not you have spiritual problems. I doubt very much that any spiritual problems you may have are any worse than my own spiritual problems. And thank you for inviting me to correct your perception.

You have stated multiple times that you basically think I am a liar, which is a very serious accusation. (If you mean something else by “misrepresentation and straw manning”, please correct me.)

I try to choose my words carefully. If I thought you were a liar, I would call you a liar. I do not think you are a liar, and I don't believe that I've called you one. While you frequently misrepresent others' views, I do not believe that you do so deliberately. This is why you are not a liar. Nonetheless, your characterization of others' views is often inaccurate, as in your post that I am currently responding to. Again, thank you for inviting me to correct your perception.

Now, you seem to want to start a campaign on MennoNet to try to socially isolate me and get people to “disengage” me.

I suppose it depends on exactly what "campaigning" is, but I have no intentions of campaigning for anything. I made a single suggestion, which people are free to follow or ignore, and repeated it only because my meaning was evidently unclear the first time. I had no plans to pursue the matter further. If I were truly campaigning I would do things much differently. I certainly do not want to socially isolate you. The issue is that many MN conversations involving you are unproductive largely because of your inaccurate characterizations of others. It's a well-established pattern, again, amply demonstrated in the post I'm responding to. I believe that everyone, including yourself, would be best served by just walking away from those conversations instead of keeping them going for pages and pages. If people feel that they are having productive conversations with you, I want those conversations to continue, and I hope there can be more of them.

It's really just another way of saying that people should often simply ignore posts, topics, and posters that bother them, that nobody is forced to be involved in unproductive discussions, as several others have said at various times on MN.

If you’d like to just go back to agreeing to disagree and respect each other’s different political opinions, I’d be glad to.

This has nothing to do with our differences of opinion, political or otherwise. You are certainly not the MNer with whom I have the most differences of opinion. Disagreement is fine, and often leads to productive conversations. What does not lead to productive conversations are frequent, repeated mischaracterizations of one party by the other. That is all.

[Josh]

I certainly do not want to socially isolate you. The issue is that many MN conversations involving you are unproductive largely because of your inaccurate characterizations of others.[/quite]

Of course, this is a matter of opinion; it is a “you” statement and not an “I” statement.

If someone feels misrepresented, it’s best to simply clearly state your position. I’ve endeavoured to try to make “I” statements since Robert asked us to try to start doing that.

I feel you made a rather personal attack and the back-pedalled once I asked you to clarify it, and I feel you also decided to defend “you frequently misrepresent others' views”. That’s clearly a matter of personal opinion. These are my feelings and perceptions.

I invite plenty of clarification about my own opinions or statements if anyone wants to know.

I would stand by statement that calling on other people to disengage with a specific person, by name, leads to a hostile and unfriendly environment in MN. If people want to disengage - let them disengage. We don’t need targeted attacks at specific people.

I used to frequently target a few people here I felt spread misinformation and misinformed views. I decided that wasn’t a useful use of my time a few years ago and decided to try to just treat them as people and find areas of agreement instead. I now feel like my feelings towards these people are much more charitable.