I apologize for the late response.



I've been checking out the official Simonsays Pocket Books Trek board occasionally over the last week or so. There's not a lot of traffic, but the latest interface is an improvement over the last one, I think. I remember hanging out at simonsays a lot back in the old days, and then they switched to another interface and it kinda broke and everyone went over to psiphi instead.



So I posted something the other day and noticed that it showed me as having registered in 2000. I do not remember that. So I did a search, and I actually posted a few times back then. One or two looked pretty familiar, but there was one post I made that someone responded to and I guess I just couldn't be bothered to reply.



So, better late than never:



In a discussion about New Earth, a series largely created and partly written by a conservative ideologue, someone made a passing remark about new Trek series, saying "Now if they could just dump the political correctness garbage on the newer shows...."



And I posted, following a grumpy paragraph or two on the scientific issue relating to New Earth being discussed elsewhere in the thread:

As for "political correctness" in newer Trek series... are you one of those tiresome usenet people who can't relate to anything that isn't about white male Christian Republicans? You could watch Fox News.

(I spent a lot of time in the 1990s reading tiresome posts on usenet from people who thought there was no reason for having a black station commander or a female starship captain than pandering to the politically correct. There's nothing racist or sexist in always having white men running things; that's just the default, after all, and you'd better have a darn good reason for having someone who is not a white man. Otherwise you're demonstrating "politically correct" racism by making a character female or nonwhite who doesn't have to be. All of which is nonsense, but in those days Rush Limbaugh had a TV show, not a drug habit.)



So the guy replied:

I have posted a grand total of three posts here. You don't know me, or my politics, or my religion. and I don't know what a "tiresome usenet person is". For all you know, I could be a Klingon.



But I do know what a rude person is, and your comment reveals what you are quite clearly.

And I never replied, apparently.



Okay, my tone may have needed a little work. But "politically correct garbage" is a loaded choice of words. When aimed at the newer shows circa 2000, you know, the one with the black guy and the one with the woman, certain inferences can easily be made. It's certainly not the least rude way to refer to a couple of TV series.



So. Who is it who usually tosses around the term "politically correct garbage"? Google isn't turning up a lot of liberals and atheists. Plenty of conservatives and Christians, though.



And speaking of conservatives, the name of the person in question (with an email name matching his bbs username) appears on the conservative National Review forum. Same guy passes on his prayers on a sports forum elsewhere. Could be I'm wrong about his brand of religion, but I don't think I completely misconstrued his post.



And that's enough self-serving blather for now.



(Now playing: Franz Ferdinand, "This Fire," Franz Ferdinand.)