Let me tell you a little story...
I first went to AUundercover because another member of this board issued a plea for help. He was being abused there. I am nothing if not a knight and I took it upon myself to heed his call. I went there with guns blazing, throwing grenades in every direction.
Once there I discovered the Weasel. He's got an extreme view of things. More extreme than I ever thought about being. What I also saw was many of the so-called Auburn fans on that board attacking him en masse.
Among other things they:
1) Questioned his sexual orientation
2) Questioned his Auburn fandom
3) Insisted that unless he bowed to the "official" point of view, he should be banned from the site
4) Attacked him personally rather than debating the points he raised.
5) Took sides with avowed Bama fans against him
Sound familiar to any of you?
Weasel was bombastic. He was completely over the top. But he didn't back down. And that impressed this agent of Kaos.
So I invited him to visit this site. Why? Because I thought that this site, more so than any other, would be a safe haven for his rants. My belief was (and remains) that in a bomb-friendly zone, the Weez would be able to get that out of the system and add value to this board.
*cue low humming of the Star Spangled Banner *
This site, you see, represents the best of America to me. It was founded on freedom. It was founded with one basic rule.
You know in the Planet of the Apes movies how the ape society has that one basic rule "Ape shall not kill ape?" It's sort of like that.
No, I'm not talking about the no racism rule, because that's really nebulous and sort of unenforceable. Besides one man's racism is another man's Chocolate News, but I digress.
*humming grows louder *
No, I'm talking about the rule that NOBODY on this site gets to say "Agree with me or change your colors." This site just doesn't work that way. We may fight. We may disagree. We may want to have hot steamy sex with each other. Or maybe not. We may want to kick the living shit out of each other -- you know who I'm talking to! -- but we NEVER say that one or the other of us has the market on Auburn fandom cornered.
Nobody on this site has that right.
We lived under the thumb of David Fucking Ward telling all of us what was and what wasn't Auburn when that bearded bastard wouldn't know it if Auburn grew fangs and bit his (according to Titan) stubby dick off. We chafed under moderation that directed the "tone" and the direction of threads. We suffered under uneven moderation that protected certain Bama fans at the expense of Auburn fans. We endured personal attacks because we had the audacity to have thoughts that were counter to what a handful of misguided dolts expressed.
And then somebody, thank goodness, built a lifeboat and carried us away from there. We landed here at Plymouth X. And we started our own colony, built on expressive freedom.
Raven Riley was our Pocohontas. And I did her all over the land.
When I was on my I hate Tony Franklin kick and spent untold hours shredding the guy on the site, you guys let me work through it. Because that's what we do. Some of you disagreed with me -- some vehemently. But not once did any of you tell me I had to sign up for your view or get off the Auburn bus. And I never said that anybody who was on the Franklin wagon was any less of an Auburn fan than I am. That's the cornerstone of this site. It makes me cry.
So when I saw the Weasel getting abused in a most David Fucking Wardsian manner, I encouraged him to join us here. The Weasel resisted at first because he was afraid that he would run into the same close-minded "agree with me or you're not an AU fan" wall that surrounded him at AUU. I assured him that he would not, because this site was founded on that very principle. I thank the founding brothers for setting this ship asail.
I currently hate Jay Jacobs just as much as I did two years ago when I started raising hell about him and the potential damage he could do to this program. I still want him gone. But I'm almost over the ranting -- almost -- and am moving on to the scheming and thinking to figure out what I can possibly do to make sure this is the last coaching hire he gets to make.
Weasel isn't there yet. And he may not get there. That's okay, too.
I've read a lot of his stuff. I've never seen any indication that he WANTS Chizik to fail, only that failure is the outcome he fears with every bone in his body. Remember my soul aching during the early Franklin debacle? I think the Weasel's soul is aching now.
And I also believe that the Weasel -- if I may be so bold to speak for him -- is willing to endure that failure if in doing so it improves Auburn in the long run. That's a far different position than "hoping" for failure.
*Are you still humming? You can stop now.*
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