what ever happened to linux?(Rep. Cleaver/immigration rants, etc.)

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Tue, 8/12/08, Monty J. Harder <mjharder at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:42 PM, Craig Aldinger
> <gonzogone at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I may be just a reader of the forum for the vast
> > majority of the posts arriving at my electronic 
> > doorstep but, I feel rather mystified..... I
> > thought this is the Kansas City LINUX Users Group.
> > While I can be massively entertained by the
> > sociological/political/religious meanderings of 
> > some folks who post here, my primary interest is 
> > in learning as much as I can about, you guessed 
> > it, LINUX.
> 
> It happens occasionally that we discuss things 
> other than Linux, the *BSDs, other Unices, or 
> even the DOS/Windows lineage. Given the wide 
> variety of political and religious leanings of 
> this group, when we do that, it's almost certain 
> to result in a flamefest.

Part of the problem is that Linux and various other things associated with Linux fall into a category which paradoxically attracts people from both ends of the political spectrum.

Its free.  This means that businesses can benefit from it, but it also means that individuals can throw off the yoke of oppressing corporations bent on global domination (which is bad for business, at least the business with aspirations towards global domination).

Plus as Linux has stayed on the sidelines when questions of religion and divinity have come up, people from all religions start using Linux, even the weird ones (you know, the ones where a bunch of people worship something that you don't worship).  Thus two people who have diametrically opposed religious beliefs both like the same OS and both belong to the same mailing list, and thus have ample opportunity of meeting people, finding minor theological faults with them, and thus exploding the list into major theological flamewars.

And of course Linux generally attracts the more intelligent people in the world, meaning that mentioning Hitler and such things as "Godwin's Law" are more likely to continue the discussion as folks find rational ways of including Hitler in the discussion.  On the mighty and holy N-----s, "Godwin's Law" may have halted a discussion amongst the lesser mortals, but on an intelligent mailing list full of intelligent but seemingly emotionally thin-skinned individuals, its just another topic to find parallels to compare it to the over-arcing topic, Linux.