Good Morning Digital Neighbors from across Locals! Happy Saturday Refugees, Phamily and Triggeratti! Hey there Early Birds, Later Dayers, Dawn Patrol, Day Walkers, Fascinating People, Conversants, Lurkers and of our course you Beautiful Bigots!! Love you all, good attracts good and paywalls help keep out the cheap trolls at least.😉 Communities of discussion and healthy disagreement are good for our hearts but more and more difficult to discover and maintain.
Locals offers the opportunity to discover communities of discussion more readily than most experiences of social media. Who would have thought that paywalls would keep out the majority of the free ranging trolls who come only to tear down since that is their on-line sport. I know there are enclaves of good discussion on other platforms, but unless you can exercise direction over your smaller intentional communities, the presence of trolls and shit-posters can kill many communities.
The fracturing of communities, relationships and families is more and more commonplace. The give and take of relationships is further strained when we can find solace in technology and distraction. Reconciliation is not an easy process and sometime impossible to achieve since it requires the intention and goodwill of all involved parties. One can forgive an @-sshole, but one cannot be reconciled to one. You can also be a sorry @-sshole, but sorrow without a real effort to change attitude and actions is empty. The Master recommends 77 or 7 x 70 times, (there seems to be a discretion in some translations, either way it is a lot) but most can't get past one offense let alone 7 or more. Some baseball people are fans of the 3 strikes and you are out, but whatever it is, everyone has their threshold of patience and forbearance.
When venturing for on the inter-webs, be it at Locals or other forms for on-line communities I try to keep a few things in mind. Not in any particular order.
1. Engagement with strangers whose first move is personal attack get blocked, muted, ignored almost immediately. I don't think I have seen or experienced this at all on Locals, but my engagement is limited.
2. With people you get to know through posting and perhaps chatrooms, live streams or ZOOM calls sooner or later you may have to agree to disagree. Many people cannot seem to fathom that someone else may not only not hold dear your most beloved convictions, they may vehemently disagree or even attack or mock your beloved convictions. If you can't agree to disagree or learn to deal with the said topic with patience or kindness, a parting of ways may well happen. Sometimes really good relationships are lost because of such crossroads. Everyone is intolerant of something
3. The inter-webs is not for the faint-hearted and easily offended. If you are among the easily offended, perma-offended or trigger-happy immatures, step lightly on-line. Facts aren’t the only thing that don't care about your feelings, most of humanity doesn't. Finding people who do is one of the real joys of friendship.
3A. I don't have the right to not be offended. I have the power to get over it.
4. Online conversations about topics or convictions of personal importance will rarely persuade others to change their mind. The whole "pilling" phenomenon is very personal, everyone has the critical moment that caused a shift in attitudes, a re-examining of convictions, a potential wake-up call to another way of thinking or at least the realization that others may have good reasons for disagreeing or at least varying from yourself.
5. Being curious about others and their experiences will bear more fruit than always looking for offense. I think the WOKE tend to see the world as broken and busted as they are. Many seem to need to attack you, break you down, make you confess your past offenses and then rebuild a new "sanity" to replace the old mindset. The new sanity will not lead you down the path to healthy relationships or even a healthy understanding of self. It will be a very lonely departure from your "offensive" past and the subjugation of your self as your join the group-thinking and herd-feeling "enlightened." The WOKE will always have Tic-toc I guess. Choose wisely - it will make for a better life.
6. Support creators you appreciate, be it subscriptions or just a kind word. It can go a long way. Happy Saturday my friends!
Spring Time Barn Photograph by Kevin Pugh
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
The native Brits are going to jail for trying to protect their land, their homes, their children, their culture. They are deemed Rrrracist.
The French are dealing with violent riots, burning of schools and businesses, targeting of religious institutions, and any dissent is Rrrrracist.
As most every Western society kowtows to an invasion of barbarians, opposing this is considered Rrrracist.
Now they are instituting the thought crime of Rrrracism as the highest of crimes (over raping children, for example) and punishable by death. No "due process" needed. Just HUNT these people down and MURDER them.
As their own world and culture is being destroyed, they are distracted to "kill the Jews." And the alternative is to go to jail, or, if accused of aiding or abetting, face the firing squad.
This is what the "Progressives" believe. The "Green" party, the socialists, the Marxists, the communists. They are the actual racists, full of a queer mixture of hate, stupidity, suicidal empathy, and indoctrination....
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
