Reply #146: Looks like I also owe you an apology then Alcibi....

[moriah]

I'm assuming (and I really need to be careful with that whole assuming thing, it does make an ass out of me) that you say she is a partisan hack and a fanatical Clintonite based on her lengthy posting history?

I have a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what they say happened to them. I wasn't there with her, I can't prove her wrong. I don't know the people on this board well, when I see a person with a long posting history I tend to believe they're an established person and not what most people would call a "troll". (And my post to you was more in frustration because so many people had immediately accused this person of lying and I couldn't see much motivation to support it except the really bad bitterness and suspicion that I see between the supporters of our two candidates.) Even when there is another person who says they witnessed an event and directly contradicts what another person said, there are the two stories and the the truth, which is usually a mixture of the two stories.

I don't see how it's preposterous to believe that excited supporters of one candidate might attend an event where their candidate's opponent was, want to see better and possibly to be seen better by the media, and jostle people around, more excited about their candidate and their candidate's rival's appearance than cautious about bumping into little people in the crowd. I can see people not paying attention to a kid if they were looking at the parade itself and trying to get a better view/make a better statement about their support of their own candidate to any media/people who were paying attention. I can see a kid, who is lighter, being knocked down by jostling that would only bump an adult around. I can see people who are intensely excited (not zealotlike, just excited) about what's going on being more frustrated about a little kid in their way when they realized they had bumped into them hard or knocked them down accidentally than concerned about a kid who wasn't crying and had gotten scraped up like lots of kids do on the playground. I can see a parent being frustrated by what is happening but not feel like they had to carry their kid out right then.

I can also see a person who was trying to get a good look/get seen better who didn't notice the kid stepping on a kid's foot, and I can even see them being heavier or stepping with more force because of the excitement -- perhaps that adult had gotten jostled by someone else behind her and was only trying to keep their balance to keep from falling, and happened to step on the kid's foot with more force because they were off-balance? I can see a mother who has been frustrated that her kid was getting banged around and then finally stepped on hard, and losing it a bit by "screaming" (as she said the person accused her of doing) about them "stomping" on her child's foot. And if I were a fired-up supporter in a crowd, perhaps caught up by the crowd's excitement/possible negativity since it was the rival candidate who was to be appearing, got pushed from behind, tried to keep my balance, and accidentally stepping on a kid's foot, then getting "screamed" at, that I might be less concerned with the kid's well-being and less inclined to apologize, and perhaps even call the person a fucking bitch if I was upset.

I can also easily see how if I were the OP in this situation that she describes that I would be really pissed off, and might decide to vent about being pissed off on a forum where politics is discussed since the OP says the people were political supporters. And would probably come across more dramatic than it actually was, be more likely to attribute malice to what may very well have been accidental (but was still careless and impolite and rude). I could see letting my anger at the rude unapologetic person who trampled my child's foot reflect on everyone there who was bumping into me and my kid, and perhaps even make broad generalizations.

It just doesn't seem all that preposterous to me. Maybe her anger made it seem more dramatic than what her later posts seem to clarify about the situation, but I don't see the whole story as a lie. Then again, perhaps I'm too trusting.