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Originally Posted by Lubeboy
I guess I have to keep my big mouth shut then and only offer my opinion when asked.
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Wow. If that's not exactly the opposite of what I think, I don't know what is.
You should speak your mind. IRL, you should do so as calmly and as rationally as possible. Nothing fires up an audience that already opposes your viewpoint than spittle flying at them. There are all sorts of verbal defusers that people use to temper their message, but personally I find that it's best to listen to what the other person has to say instead of waiting for your turn to speak. Some points of view aren't reconcilable - put Jenna Jamison in a room with Fred Phelps, and only one will come out alive - but if the participants are willing to listen to each other, understand the opposing point and how the individual got there, then it's possible for the two to leave the conversation at least feeling no animosity towards the other.
Here - the internet "here", not just TFP in particular - it's sort of the same, only you have the ability to refuse to engage. If you state your views in a radical way with inflamatory language - "if you don't agree with me, you're all rickrolled LOLZcatz" - then you should expect your views to be challenged in the most forceful way possible. People on the internet, with myself at the top of the list, tend to forget how easy it is to misread the intent of someone's statement. I know I've taken offense at what was intended to be a throw-away line in an otherwise agreeable post. Is that the reader or the writer's fault? Both, I say. Most of us don't use English in the most precise way, and that's where lots of problems arise.