APG is Biased ... and many more issues about paintball

[nastymag]

First i may post about things that will anger or tick off some of you ... this is my opinion , thats it.

First off i would like to say i am 16.
grew up in texas ( the state every one likes to hate, i loved it)
i am a democrat .
i learned gun safty and have shot real guns many times( since i was 9 )
i am part of alot things people dont think can mix.
i am part of the seirra club
i am hispanic
i am currently planing on joining the AirForce if my college grades are good enough this next semester.
the early part of my childhood my grama tried to raise my catholic ( i can say i practice it ... but i respect it and i am thinking about religion )
i am not rich.
and i now live in marin county ( the rishest county in the US .. also very libral and democrat ... and not very diverse)

i wrote this all down so you can see that i have alot of things influncing my opinions.


recently i was reading an article in APG about a pastor who would organize paintball feild trips and involve church teachings too ( this is great , i have no proplem with this)
but in the article, the writer refered to the other kids as " unsaved " and many other things that where not to nice about people who where not christian.
this is a magazine read by many people and great influnence over the newer paintball communtity.
i remeber showing a copy of APG to my parents so that they would let me play( the did ) . what would have happend if they had read an article like this ?
the thing that kinda makes me mad. is that we say tolerate people no matter there religion or ethincty and then we go along and print somthing like this in the largest magazine.
this could make alot of players feel bad( it mad me ) personaly i have stoped buying APG and started buying paintball 2 xtreems and facefull .. i think these magazines are better written and dont sound so ( well you know how APG feels like when you read it ... )
i cant find the issue, but i am going to look for it and post on exactly what it said .

next subject( im trying to include the subjects which i think are importent to the paintball community)

i read alot about " those danm librals " or "stupid democrats " ... " danm californian treehuggers". type of posts in other websites and other places.

this i think is tearing the sport around.
i heard a person on ppc say how california was run by a whole bunch of tree huggers and how paintball was going to be banned here in 5 years.
california has one of the largest number of players in the country.
and most of us are democrats or "libral" and yet i see all these people bashing us like we dont play and such.
alot of ethinctys tend to lean democrat.
so by all this infighting we are alienating alot of our players which are not white or upper class.
most of the players i seee around here are asian and mexican with an equal amount of anglos.
what i think i am trying to get at is that we should not alighn our sport towards any political party.

i think getting together and forming a watch group to make sure no one tries to ban our sport would be the best thing.

i was going to write alot more but its 2 am and i forgot alot about what iw as going to write.

i wanna hear your comments.

*note * people should post what they think is an importent subject in paintball

[21caballer]

recently i was reading an article in APG

i didn't read the exact article but it sounds like you have a complaint with apg here. i would classify this as bad writing and not a larger issue with paintball itself.

i read alot about " those danm librals " or "stupid democrats " ... " danm californian treehuggers". type of posts in other websites and other places.

this i think is tearing the sport around.
i heard a person on ppc say how california was run by a whole bunch of tree huggers and how paintball was going to be banned here in 5 years

gotta put my 2 cents in here. i don't think you will find these same things said in ao. i havn't seen it yet in the paintball forum.

california does have a lot of vocal environmentalists groups, what they are saying is usualy correct but they are so annoying it is hard to like the groups that represent them.

alot of ethinctys tend to lean democrat.
so by all this infighting we are alienating alot of our players which are not white or upper class.
most of the players i seee around here are asian and mexican with an equal amount of anglos.
what i think i am trying to get at is that we should not alighn our sport towards any political party.

i think those statements are a little to broad. i think you are implying that if ppl say bad things about liberals then they are being racist?? someone correct me on this one if im wrong. but it does rase a very interesting question is paintball alghned to the republican party? i dont think so. maybe republicans are more friendly towards the nra, guns in general so therefore they will be more friendly to paintball,, to early to tell. most politicians dont know anything about paintball yet.

well you wanted my comments there they are



(I made it a little easier to read. Army)

[nastymag]

thank you for your comments.

About APG ... the proplem with it i think is that it is the biggest Magazine in the paintball industry and an article like this has the pwer do do some very bad things.


also i may be being a little to broad with the libral statments.
but what i ment is that by alighning ourselves with a political party we may be alienating alot of other players then instead of just not taking sides. i didnt mean for it to sound like any one saying that librals where wrong where being racist ( because thats not racism).
i just think alot of people dont realize how broad the spectrum of players is ( after the issue of how much it costs to play what i call the most expensive sport).
And that be ignoring that fact may be a little hurtful.

by the way i havent read anything bad or what i am commenting on , on AO i ment more like PPC and PPN where i have encountered alot of racism and arrogance ( thats why i think i may be hangin around here alot more often from now on )

[Army]

I'm going to take this to Friendly and leave it up as long as it stays civil.

Even though this is about APG, it is bending the rule about political threads.

[kutter]

Ok, I probably don't need to get into this but here goes....

A recent survey conducted and printed in that mag you dislike indicated that in fact most paintball players come from affluent white families and range in age from 12-17. Now having said that it does not mean that we should ignore the other folks that play paintball, but you will tailor everything toward your largest demographic if you want to be successful in a business. In cali I am sure that the players are much more diverse than down here in southern florida, where I see more females playing than minorities. Which is ironic given the LARGE hispanic population down here, but I play in west palm more than anywhere else so that may explain that.

Now as for the 'liberal tree huggers', well extremist will always be extremist, be them right or left wing, Cailifornia just has a bunch that lean way left. The problem with extremist is that they will take something and spin it so that the situation seems so much worse than it is. I have 2 examples, a lot of fuss has been made about the Alaskan pipeline and its impact, I sometimes wondered just how bad it was until I read an article that drew this comparison. To put its size to something we can better understand, if you dropped a thread across Long Island it would be the same size in relation to it as the pipeline is to Alaska, and yes you read that correctly a thread. Alaska is so unbelievably big and so sparsly populated that it is hard to fathom until you have been there. My other example was learned first hand. Much has been made of drilling in Alaska's pristine wilderness and the impact that it may cause. Well I have news for you, its not pristine, its a lot of frozen desolate land. If by pristine you mean untouched by man, well thats true, but its not like going to the Sequoia National Forest and drilling a well, its a flat featureless frozen plane that no one in there right mind would ever want to live. Not to mention that it gets ungodly cold there.

Now, as for the religion thing, this country was founded by people seeking religous freedom. Opinions are protected by that wonderful document our forefathers had the unerring wisdom to draft, provided of course that it is only an opinion and not slanderous or libelous or threatening to another person. So if the magazine decides to print it then that is a business decision on their part. Is it a good one, maybe not, do I agree with it, no. But, and here is the rub, conservatives tend to be more active in religion, I saw a study somewhere I will try to dig it up, so it is possible that the decision to run the article was a good one since they also tend to be more lenient in their attitudes toward the sport of paintball.

I take a lot of heat from people because I refuse to call them markers, its a gun, you can call it whatever you want but if you pull something and something comes out the end then it is a gun. I mean is it now a grease dispenser and not a grease gun. That word is not what gives the sport a bad image, and people just use it as a crutch to say that it will not be mainstream until we change it. The fact of the matter is that its not any one thing that will make us the next snowboarders, but lots of things. Look at skateboarding, its not dangerous to other people, but because there were some brats out there skating when and where they shouldn't have, people have an incredible bad image of it.

Ok, now that I have been on the soapbox for a while I will surrender the remainder of my time to the distinguished gentleman from......

[Scootyd]

I read apg and will admit that a lot of the reporting does not appear totally professional I assume that most articles are mail in submissions from other players. The writers being players buys a some leeway in my book. If something doesn't sit well I write it off as one person's opinion. I hang out and read way more than I post here at AO for several reasons. The group here includes mature and knowledgable people that are willing to share information, the moderators keep it clean and in line and I think the fact that Tom watches is a very respectable move for a company owner. I frequent few other boards due to the name calling and flaming going on by persons who are very immature regardless of their age and the lack of overall personal courtesy. my 2 cents.

[bornl33t]

Originally posted by Army
I'm going to take this to Friendly and leave it up as long as it stays civil.

Even though this is about APG, it is bending the rule about political threads.

And it has regligious denotations. I vote to have the thread shut down because for me to respond would cause a religious debate to flair up.

I think it's only fair if you are going to bash us christians for making religious comments for us to shut down thread like this from the beginning. You don't want to hear what we have to say, but wanna let us know how you feel about being an outsider to our society. If you want in, you're welcomed. PM me and we'll talk. If you wanna stand on the outside and bash us, stop it right there, Ao isn't the place for that. Grab 2 chunck of ply wood, make a sign and stand on the street corner.

I've been here as long as the next memeber and no thread comes to mind that started with "First i may post about things that will anger or tick off some of you ... this is my opinion , thats it. " and didn end with a lock on the icon.

PS That was a story submited by an individual, apg does publish other ppls stories the way they are written. UNEDITED, which is rate and awesome. i love apg for that! And Bill is a great guy, he's one of our members here.

Those are MY opinions

[nastymag]

see i wasnt trying to anger anybody.
but it stands that ( it is the june issue of APG , and its a STAFF REPORT ) APG used in my opinion derogatory terms for people that where not of that religion.
i was in no way bashing Christians , if it sounded like i did, then i apoligize, i ment no harm.
i actaully think that the man carrying out this Christain youth program is doing somthing very good. Alot of kids my age need in somthing to believe in and people to help them.
i just think APG could have used different language.
i am trying to understand where you are coming from,
i just thought APG its self a community and with various different back grounds, and that sort of language maybe isnt the best for a magazine read by so many different type of people.

if the moderators want to lock this down, then be all means please do. i just thought i could voice my opinion in a healthy manner.

[bigsarge72]

All I am going to add is this...if they want to write a story about a preacher, there is nothing wrong with that. We write stories about everyone else, why would you discriminate against Christians for their beliefs. Everyone always says, "You have to be tolerant of other peoples beliefs"...well, that includes being tolerant of what Christians believe. Christians call people that are not Christians "non-believers" or "un-believers" but it is not by any means a derogatory term. It simply represents people that Christians want to reach out to in hopes that they may be saved...because that is what they believe.
I don't think that APG is a bad magazine for printing this article.
Just my opinion.

sarge

By the way, I like Texans, despite their over-inflated views about their state I just have some bad memories, because to quote the great man, "All my Exes, live in Texas" (literally)

[nastymag]

yeah ..we do kinda have an over inflated sense of our state .... dont mess with texas

but i think you made a good point bigsarge72.

[XR4]

The 'liberal' element

As former president of the Paintball Club at Michigan Tech I've dealt with many people in the school's administration. Of the few who do not approve of our activities, they all could be described as liberal. Now before all the liberal members of AO jump in, I realize many democrats participate in the sport and love of paintball does not fall across political boundaries.

I once had a lengthy discussion with the most vocal individual against paintball at MTU. She could not seperate the sport of paintball from violence and the idea of handling anything resemling a fire-arm aimed at another person disturbed her. I tried repeatedly to dissuade her without success.

Unfortunetly, the political threats to our sport I've faced and those paintball may be faced with on a larger scale will most likely originate from the left. Of course, this does not excuse labeling liberals as enemies of paintball.

I don't like your labels,
XR

[RT pRo AuToMaG]

ok, time to step up on the good old AO SoapBox!!

1. i don't care if i get flamed for this but i gotta clear it, as someone mentioned before, IT IS A PAINTBALL GUN!! calling it a marker will not change the truth of what it really is. seriously, would you call a glue gun a glue dispencer?

2. They're are people that accept paintball and people that don't. it doesn't matter if you are a democrat or republican or whatever. politics has nothing to do with who likes to play paintball.

3. when the preacher reffered to the kids as unsaved, he was looking through a preacher's point of view. in the christian religion, if you were not committed into the church, you are considered unsaved. he did not mean that as an insult.

4. and the treehuggers, well lets just say everyone i know hates them. they are soo critical of people and ****, i don't know.

that's my $0.02

/me steps off my soapbox

Stop challenging the curse filter. Chose another word - cphilip

[bornl33t]

Originally posted by bigsarge72
All I am going to add is this...if they want to write a story about a preacher, there is nothing wrong with that. We write stories about everyone else, why would you discriminate against Christians for their beliefs. Everyone always says, "You have to be tolerant of other peoples beliefs"...well, that includes being tolerant of what Christians believe. Christians call people that are not Christians "non-believers" or "un-believers" but it is not by any means a derogatory term. It simply represents people that Christians want to reach out to in hopes that they may be saved...because that is what they believe.
I don't think that APG is a bad magazine for printing this article.
Just my opinion.

sarge

Bingo, everyone want's everyone to be tolerant. Tolerant of homosexuality, miorities, piercings, tatoo, nudity, sex, blah blah blah.... all that crap. But when it comes to religion the tolerance ends. If you expect me to treat you as a normal person with your hair blue and a silver dollar in each ear lobe and a t-shirt that says " proud to be gay" then darnit I will get some respect for keepiung myself till marrige, returning the 23.65 my work over payed me and not cussing out the cop that just gave me a ticket ( altho I insist I don't have to pay them until cops start paying speeding violations themselfs ) just because I'm a christian. You got a problem with this??? Good, I hope my lifestyle offends you.

Btw, I'm not attacke ppl who are differant. I have piercings, colored hair and just plain moronic t-shirts myself.


wow... I'm amazed at how calm i stayed!!!!

[mykroft]

APG tries to be as non-confrontational as possible (Ever seen a bad review in APG), but their articles are not generally written by staff writers, but submitted by interested parties. Most likely the author of the article you were complaining about is an Evangelical Christian and used to refering to non-christians as `unsaved`. They generally don't mean anything derogatory about it, but this is the reason we have Editors, and the APG editors didn't do their jobs here.

Personally, I simply don't read APG, I prefer the somewhat more risque magazines like PGI and Facefull, since they will actually mention problems with stuff they review, and they have much better photography (Another interest of mine).

P.S. : A Democrat in the Military??? Wow, that's not exactly common.


Oh, and for the record, I'm a Canadian, a supporter of the Canadian Alliance Party(Similar to the more libertarian Republicans), an Ex-Pentecostal and lapsed Catholic. And to boot, I'm a White Finn, so my family, and I have seen our share of discrimination, although I had it much easier than my elders did.

[nastymag]

you explained things really well mykroft ... thanks .

and heat ... no one is attacking your religion , i was just saying that some people may not liked to be called unsaved ( i wasnt saying there is anything wrong with christanity)
i would get mad of they where using any other term that was offending ... no matter what religion or cuss word or deragotory term. it just seems like mykroft said , there are editors for that kinda stuff and they didnt do there job i guess.