:reality;
Sometime this evening I was watching the news and a photo of a gunman who had been involved in an incident in Silver Spring, MD was displayed. The man looked eerily familiar. I didn’t know much about the incident but I was shocked to find out that I recognized the gunman! After some thought the reality hit me, as I posted online:
Holy shit. I think I knew the guy.
http://www.meetup.com/socratescafe1/members/7792020/
Is that him? He has shown up to the philosophy group a lot.
Before you assume much else, “Lee” is very extreme when it comes to making statements. We do a pretty good job of correcting him and trying to include him in our discussions but it doesn’t always work.
We generally discuss general topics and, which few exceptions, most of what he contributes is pretty extreme and tangential. I’ve even tried to talk with him one on one but it is VERY hard to keep the discussion on track as his statements are all over the place. He was never mean or anything. His ideas are just very extreme and make it hard to discuss certain topics.
If that wasn’t him he’ll probably want to kick my ass for the accusation, or at the very least. Sorry dude but you say some irrational shit man:p
The following is the post that I made on the group message board after digesting what happened today:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/01/maryland.discovery.channel/index.html
It appears that this was group member “Lee.”
While his statements were generally quite extreme and absolute in nature, I never expected this from him. Needless to say I was quite shocked when I saw his picture plastered all over the news.
I don’t care to say anything bad and won’t. I am quite proud of the group in that we treated him with respect and provided him every courtesy, allowing him to contribute to the discussion. Lee had been with us for a while and had become the essential “other view point” of almost every discussion, and perhaps todays events might provide insight as to why.
While there might be the desire to close our minds and our hearts, I advise us to keep them open now more than ever. Good philosophical discussion is hard to find and Alex does a wonderful job of providing us with this venue to think and discuss the world, and the world within, in a safe environment from, and for, everyone.
-David
Link: http://www.meetup.com/socratescafe1/messages/boards/thread/9670375/0/#37462310
Here is a posting that he made on the message board last month
http://www.meetup.com/socratescafe1/messages/boards/thread/9450076
He was NOT happy that the latest meetings had been cancelled. And we were all so glad that the organizer had finally gotten a job (Which resulted in the cancelled meetings)
I hope this doesn’t hurt our group too much. We have some amazing discussions and were always nice to Lee and always gave him a turn to speak just like everyone else. We treated him with respect and it seemed like he liked joining us there We kind of enjoyed his rants as well as they were REALLY hard to incorporate into the discussion.
Lee: “Typical Rant…”
Group: *awkward silence*
Alex: “Okay…..so….”
All I can really think about is the fantastic job that our moderator has done with the philosophical group. At no time then or since did I expect to be harmed by Lee due to the respect and tolerance that we showed him.
Strange days indeed.