new thread
I apologize for bring up the "HairCut Reserves." I didn't mean to make it a battle!
Alan, there are some things each generation must learn for themselves, and here a generation is about six months. If you hadn't run across it, someone else would have, and the newcomers wouldn't have listened to oldtimers like me and Madoc then either.
Thus, these occasional disturbances are just something Victor and Military Father, and the two communities they run, have to put up with. Sometimes the group here will "rediscover" them and pounce. Sometimes it happens the other way.
Hair grows. We want to cultivate ours, they want to cut theirs. We both advocate what we think is attractive for other people. So long as advocacy does not become coersion, it's okay on both counts.
It's not uncommon at all for someone on here to say they feel short hair is ugly. We should not be surprised if they say over there that long hair is ugly. Slurs, though, such as calling someone a girl or a nazi just because of their hair length, are going a bit far, because slurs take on the color of coersion. So long as they are uttered out of the earshot of the subject, though, there is no coersive element - they are more in the nature of comments on ugliness.
They think of their space as short-hair space out of our earshot just as we think of this space as longhair space. The Internet is not one big happy family, it is a wide world of cultures, each carving out some space for themselves where members can feel free to say what they really feel. Well-thought-out communities are very clear about what they are about at the front door so those who wander by will know if they belong. Victor and Military Father have both made the passions of their communities very clear.
We have set aside space to be ourselves and so have they, and we all need to respect the desires of others who wish to come together while being left alone by those who know they are not welcome. A party crasher will not find support in taking offense at what he finds going on at a party to which he was not invited.
They are going to cut their hair and celebrate that as assuredly as we are going to let ours grow and celebrate that. We should let each man do what he wants regarding his hair, and celebrate his choice with others who share his passion, in peace.
So guys, we all know, once again, that they exist. Let us, once again, let them be. :-)