From: ls1@cec1.wustl.edu (Lambros Skartsis)
Subject: Folks, we don't we ... change subjects of discussion?
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:57:04 GMT

Folks, yet another example of fruitless discussion
(you might want to skip the following ~20 lines!):


In article: <Bw0rz8.BwD@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
varnavas@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (varnavas constantine) writes:

>cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>
>>I'll say it again if you like. The Turkish intervention in Cyprus was
>>perfectly justified and probably saved the lives of vast numbers of
>>Turkish Cypriots. The reality of today's world, whether it is liked or
>>not, is that there are two countries on the Island of Cyprus.
>
>Mr. Fear:
>
>Can you explain how the Turkish invasion of Cyprus was justified?
>On what principle of international law can one country invade another one
>and occupy 37% of its territory?  And why do the U.N and all other
>international organizations disagree with you on that?
>
>Anxiously waiting for your response



Now, Varnavas, why keep discussions going on, when netters like e.g.
Andy Fear are having fun teasing and aggravating others (in this case
the greek netters) just for the sake of the argument?
Have you watched his arguments and his style of dicussion, when he
"disagrees" with anything any greek has to say in issues that
span ... time and space (from ancient Macedonia through modern
Slavomacedonia, greek-turkish relations, Cyprus, etc. etc.).
Anybody can be "arguing" for ever using his style of discussion, no
matter what the topic - or the truth - is.

At any rate, why don't we finally give up with all these "national"
discussions? I have participated in the past myself, but, after some
time on the net, it seems that nobody is going to be convinced on anything
by what is written here. No matter what the facts are, here it all boils
down to who is ... screaming more convincingly, and even in this case, as
one netter pointed out, one might suspect .... forgery of postings.

It is sad to see good-old discussions going on and on, becoming more
boring and fanatic (there are certain greek netters who - sorry to say
so - have also largely contributed in making s.c.g almost intolerable).

Let's give it up! I certainly urge third-party netters whose total
knowledge about, say, the Macedonian issue comes from the two sentences
they heard in their local news, to avoid expressing strong arguments
here because they are going to initiate another thread, with mathematical
accuracy! And I would like to urge  greek and slavomacedonian netters
to avoid arguing with people like e.g. Andy Fear who have fun
aggravating others (irrespective of whom they support).

Why don't we try to have some interesting, educating discussions, without
passion? We are not going to convince anybody on "national" issues, let's
face it. On the other hand, since we all are, more or less, educated
people we have a lot to learn from one another. Some frictions are
certainly anavoidable when history is involved but we certainly have to
prevent threads from developing into fruitless long discussions like the
above mentioned.  

Opinions welcome!


Best regards,
L. Skartsis