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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> On the other topic, I don't feel that I have standing in someone else's
> life to make pronouncements over them.  To me, it's like the concept of 
> "standing" in the courtroom.  I might sue someone who I know is harming 
> themselves and could potentially cost others money indirectly, but the 
> judge will just say that I have no standing (no personal interest in the 
> situation) and throw it out of court.


All well and good, Bill, and sure what people choose to do to themselves is 
entirely their own affair.  Even how they dismiss their bad choices is their 
doing as well - their problems can be from alien implants for all anyone 
cares.  That's as long as they keep it to themselves at least to the point 
of not using it as a cudgel to derail discussions that have nothing whatever 
to do with their "condition".

As I have opined, as annoying as the geo-political discussions get, there 
seems to be a pearl among the rotting oysters from time to time that really 
does speak to the whole notion of homesteading.  But we live in some very 
diverse places and have some very diverse backgrounds and proclivities.  The 
best thing would be to leave those things out of the discussions.

We meet people all the time (in person) who is quick to schwing out the 
advice about corn, or pigs, or rabbits, or hay or whatever.  Early into the 
conversation I always ask "Great, when can I come and see how you are doing 
it?"   Nine times out of ten that's the end of it.  They AREN'T doing it. 
Sometimes though someone says "Sure, let me show you the results of what I'm 
talking about."  Even on the internet those around the country (and world 
now) with whom I've developed an ongoing dialog and whose interaction I find 
useful are always sending five photos with every bit of news or results. 
They really are doing this stuff and they really are succeeding and failing 
at it.  More the former than the latter.   In fact, if anyone wants to get 
into some real homestead discussions, email me and I'll show you some of my 
links to the most productive projects in homesteading as well as my most 
dismal failures (I document those too).  But, Bill, in all those hundreds of 
photos there's one thing you won't see .... me.   I'm not there.  I'm not 
important.  So it is with most of the really admirable homesteaders with 
whom I've had the privilege to interact over the web, I don't know what they 
look like or much about their private lives.   And as it turns out some of 
them work under very hard circumstances ... finding out only years later 
that they were paraplegic, or had cerebral palsy, or were nearly blind, or 
worse.

The "standing" is the extent to which people want to wear their "condition" 
on their sleeve and to limit what someone else has to say about homesteading 
because it interferes with their pity party.

James