Good-bye, Dennis, and good luck

I have been reading a.r.s. since February but I'm leaving now, and I'll tell you why if anyone is interested.

The postings here have become largely frivolous, irrelevant, self-indulgent, and full of gratuitous insults.

And I'm not talking about the COS posters.

The predominant tone here is now not only hostile (I have nothing against hostility to bad and dangerous beliefs), but mean, ugly, and, with increasing frequency, filled with disgusting personalized obscenities directed against individuals.

I'm not offended by vulgar language per se (although it quickly becomes tiresome, and I've long since dropped henry into the same chain locker with Woody; I trust they're forging bonds together). What does offend me, finally, is that I see new posters coming in who have nothing to offer but vicious attacks on individuals persons. I rather suspect that these people have no knowledge of that which they're attacking, but they find the atmosphere conducive to venting generalized anger in a group that sanctions its expression, providing only that the target is a Scientologist.

Let me be clear: what I've learned from reading a.r.s. has been valuable. I've come from thinking of Scientology as a relatively harmless fringe scam to seeing it in its full alarming dimensions and appalling history. I certainly won't forget it.

Dennis and Tom: I wish you the best of both British luck and American justice. My thoughts will be with you on Friday.

Here's a piece of advice from Nietzsche:

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks also into you."

--Barbara