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Hi. I tend to be an observer type, and as such, sometimes I make observations even of myself and have to laugh at myself some times. One of the hard things to do is to take a look at yourself without the baggage of your own life experience and make an observation and analyze it. Like right not making the preamble to this post too long. I smile to myself here as I think about it. Anyway, as an observer, I would like to express my observations and the conclusions I drew from those observations. I make no judgments based on this, but some of these things are opinions based on the facts I observe. J.A. Terranson wrote: I found your post interesting and entertaining and liked the "story". We all do things that we can look back on and laugh at but they sometimes don't seem so funny at the time. The important things is to learn from that experience, and by sharing our mistakes, others can learn as well.- On Sun, 8 May 2005, Dan Henke wrote: Observation 1: I do not recall that you mentioned anywhere in any of your posts that you consulted with the park managers and they told you that they were in violation of explicit rules of the park management. Observation 2: Since I never saw an indication that the actual managers of the park thought that the caches were in violation of any rules, and that no exceptions were granted to violate those rules, it follows that from the known facts that you came to this conclusion on your own without any corroboration from the people whose job it is to determine who is breaking the rules, and whether there are any exceptions made due to special circumstances to those rules. Observation 3: Threats are tools of a bully, or someone trying to seem more powerful than they actually are so they don't have to fight. Since I don't know you personally, I don't know which if either of those descriptions fit you. However, threats are NEVER going to win anyone over to your side, nor does it lend factual weight to any of the points you make. It has been my observation in the past that threats are used when one's position is weak and needs bolstering. Here you will have to examine your own motives for the threats, and perhaps consider whether using them is truly effective in presenting your case. Observation 4: This observation is one of myself. I reacted to this threat as the action of someone who has take an unpopular position and is using it to try to even the odds against those who are outnumber you, and at least for me, that made more of a difference about my opinion of your personality than it did about the merits of your argument. For me, it took away from the points you were trying to make. I have a personal prejudice against bullies. But since I am an observer, I can set that aside.... Observation 5: With the sad state of the legal system these days, the number of papers you have filed in court isn't necessarily anything that is going to help make your point. If anything, it MAY indicate that you are overly litiginous and this is just another one of your conquests. It brings to mind the many "Stella Award" types of things, and I don't know anyone who thinks those are good things. Observation 6: I fully support the right to freedom of speech whether what you say is popular or not. Observation 7: Exercising your freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to expect that there will not be any opposition to what is said. Observation 8: Just one has the freedom to say it doesn't mean that it automatically becomes true. Observation 9: This is a variation of the gun theme of "Guns are evil" versus the "Guns don't kill anyone, people do". Observation 10: The NRA is right. Observation 11: The cache is just sitting there and is not capable of any action. Observation 12: Any HURTING of the surrounding habitat is not done by the cache, but is the deliberate decision and actions of those hunting the cache. Observation 13: It really sounded to me in the log entry that you violated the rules yourself when you were searching for the cache Observation 14: Given 13, did you feel like you had some sort of special dispensation for breaking the rules? Observation 15: If you did feel like you were not violating the rules because of some special dispensation, then does it seem reasonable that the cache itself may have been placed under some dispensation? Observation 16: I did not see any reference of there being an attempt at determining whether there was any type of dispensation existing for the cache. Observation 17: Observation of myself: Your quote "We tore that place up bad - I mean it." Somehow brings the thought into my head that somehow you know that tearing up the place is bad, and that somehow you have to excuse that behavior by blaming the cache. I realize that this would be trying to assign a motive to your actions, and that can only be conjecture on my part since I don't have any idea what is going on in your head, but the theory is certainly possible. Not know you personally means I have no way of measuring whether that theory applies in your case. Observation 18: Use of offensive language does not add to the any factual presentation and is a way to try to bolster the argument artificially. This usually indicates an inherent weakness in an argument that has to somehow be overcome through some other means than fact and logic. Enter emotion... Observation 19: It appears that "technically illegal" is an opinion masquerading as a fact since the park manager's pronouncement is not anywhere in any of the posts I have seen. Lacking that, the conclusion is unwarranted. Observation 20: I find it interesting that ego is mentioned here by JA. It immediately took me back to this portion of the post: And they will STAY gone, even if I have to go to court to keep them gone. Anyone who thinks I'm bluffing better think again - Go check the couthouses around town and see who often I'm there to file routine papers.Observation 21: Self observation: Why does it seem to me that this is like the pot calling the kettle black? I look up ego, and it references egotism and conceit. Egotism refers back to ego, and as a circular reference, it is not helpful. I look up conceit and it says: an exaggerated opinion of oneself, one's merits, etc. I think this applies to one who stands alone against a crowd more than one who is speaking out of a crowd. You have to have some ego in order to stand up against a crowd. The only thing left to figure out is whether the stand is worthy of merit and should be something one stands up against a crowd to support. Observation 22: Self observation: Why does vigilante pop into my head. I think that the action fits the classic definition as I see it. All legal actions has been taken and you are not satisfied with the results, so you take the law into your own hands either before or in spite of due process. Seems to fit it this case. Observation 23: After reading the last sentence, I repeat observations 19 through 21. Observation 24: I recall the threat of court and how many items have been filed in court. Is that ego that prompted such boasting? Is this yet another pot and kettle example? I need to think about that one, but it does seem to fit. Observation 25: This reminds me of another answer in another post that basically indicated that the poster in that note just did not understand the situation and that is why they disagreed with the actions JA took. Observation 26: Observation 25 reminds me of a personal experience with several people. Their mantra was "You are not understanding the situation". In the final analysis, these folks genuinely thought that if you did not agree with them, that there was something wrong with you and you just did not understand. I found that in many of these cases, the people were communicating effectively, and they WERE understood. The problem is not that folks didn't understand, it was that they disagreed. The one claiming that the others did not understand was really the one that "didn't understand". Observation 27: If this were true, then everyone should be applauding you for your action and that does not seem to be the case. If there is no one supporting you, then there is no "us". Observation 28: Personal observation: I have seen other people who have use the plural form of pronouns to elevate personal opinion to the level of generally accepted facts. Is there any hint of that here? I cannot tell for sure. Well, there are my observations. You can interpret them as you will. I will before I form an opinion, but the vigilante thing looks to be the thing that I will probably settle on since I have not seen any evidence that the park managers themselves feel that the caches themselves are illegal. If you were in contact with them and they were removed because of that communication, then my opinion will change, and it will become an issue of just poor presentation of the facts by you, or poor reading and understanding skills on my part. It has take awhile to write this, and in that time there have been 37 new messages in the forum, so I hope I may be operating with old information. **************************************** Our WebPage! 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