Although welcoming Shawn is the only appropriate response, it bears reinforcing the fact that coming into a community guns blazing and defensive is an attitude that deserves, no, demands a response which I'm happy Brad did. Too many people in society seem to have no concept of how they appear based upon their own chosen actions. These sorts of things then lead to the deserved response and engender a confrontational attitude that denies the ability of either party to actually come to an understanding, which is the point of the post in the first place, right Shawn?
Online forum so who cares? The fact is that this behavior extends to the real world and amongst climbers as a user group, having this sort of knee-jerk attitude is something that can easily hurt climber/ranger relations and hurt the hard and long work that the members of this forum have developed over the years. After all, it's important to constantly ask yourself, why am I allowed to be a user group at this and any other park?
So, my contribution to this thread needs to be a question to Shawn; "Does it make sense to look at your own actions and access how it affects your own concerns? Why would you make a conscious or subconscious choice to hurt your own perspective with unwarranted and divisive action?"
The "other" always seems like the sole holder of fault and spite, but wisdom dictates that looking at your (and your tribe's) own choices in addition so that your life is filled with greater understanding and compromise rather than more conflict and misunderstanding.
Its the end of the school quarter so I'm pretty sensitive to this sort of thing because of all the kids and parents attacking first and learning about the full context of the issue second.
Back to witty comments and choss love now.
