Gib, Bill &Paul,
Thanks for the encouragement to stay. I’m afraid it’s a bit too late. I have been trying to figure out how to delete my own account for a while. I messaged Ben about it last winter and got no response. I was trying to avoid reaching out to Ran directly… I had little interest in bothering him with it. And despite Jaka-Barney K’s suggestion that I was asking for attention… pure poppycock. I would understand why he might assume as much, but I sadly lack the pure narcissism that drives his way of thinking.
This will certainly be my final GCA post. Simply put, I don’t even want to be on the member list anymore. The ship has drifted so far off course I would prefer not be associated with Golflcubatlas. It’s a bit sad. If one looks at the member list, I was among the very first registered members of the site. While I have not been a prolific poster I have always been an avid reader. In addition, I have met many wonderful people that I now count as friends. I know more about the game than I ever hoped to and much of that knowledge is a result of stumbling across GCA while searching for Cuscowilla photos in 1999.
Sadly, I now also know more about people’s viewpoints. I find some of these viewpoints so offensive, I don’t want to be associated with them. In any way. Ever. Thus the desire to delete my account. I don’t try to argue these views, nor do I want to hear either side of discussions that mostly involve folks spouting rhetoric and neither reading closely nor actively listening. Of course, none of this has anything to do with GCA but we also might have exhausted that subject anyway.
Here’s the rub. For the last 10 years, my wife has worked in immigration. She produces something called a “Hardship Waiver” on behalf of illegal immigrants as part of a law firm. It is a LEGAL process by which a law-abiding, tax-paying and generally valuable member of society who also happens to be an illegal alien can present a case to the Federal Government that they deserve to stay in the U.S. legally. Her clients come from all over the world… Mexico, India, China, Panama, El Salvador… Oh, Ireland. While I sling booze for a living, my wife saves lives. Literally. Not one of us would last ten minutes in the places these folks escaped to live the American dream, and I’m proud of her for doing what she does.
I won’t try to change anyone’s viewpoints on immigration. I am certain, however, that many of the participants on this board had family lineages that started in the U.S. outside of the legal immigration process. Shit, our country was founded by some pretty shitty illegals… murderers, slave holders, etc. History is short, however, and media is capricious. I don’t blame anybody for spouting off, I just cannot be a part of it. There is simply no way that I could look my wife in the eye and associate with a website that includes the vitriol on the Donald Trump thread. She’s too fucking good for that.
Good luck.