Re: Magnus' letter

[rmhowe <magnusm@ncsu.edu>]

David KUIJT wrote:
> 
> Dafydd ap Gwystl greets ... the 45-zillion people on this CC:list.
> 
> Kate, if the letter from Magnus was a private one (i.e., not CC: the
> principality list) you should not have quoted it directly on the
> principality list when you decided to bring it to a larger forum.  I would
> have been much happier never having read the note exactly as it was
> written.

That letter was never supposed to be on the principality list. I wrote
it
simply to reply to Kate about her reply to Bryce, and I copied the 
Royals simply to show that Bryce is not alone in his opinions. He did 
address the crowns in his poem. However, I did have the grace to keep it 
off a wider forum, including the Merryrose and the TNNP list. 

> However, having read it, I feel I must respond.
> 
> Magnus, you made a number of personal comments regarding me in your note.
> You said you wonder at my motives, and cast aspersions on my high regard
> for Atlantia.
> 
> I am sorry you did not feel able to express yourself to me directly.  You
> are an honest person; I would have hoped that you would be willing to talk
> to me before slamming me and my motives to others.

Honestly, I am not pleased with what you are trying to do, but you seem
very
much intent on doing it. Initiating an argument about it would serve no 
purpose I can see. It is very hard for me to go from admiration of you
as
a very capable craftsman/peer/knight to discussing my thorough dislike
of
seeing Atlantia split in two with the primary architect who appears to
be
pushing this so hard. I have always been very proud of Atlantia.
 
> My motives are, and have been, quite clear.  I think that the principality
> is a good idea.  I have been working in a very public fashion to convince
> others of the same.  What, exactly, do you doubt?

We in the South have heard this principality business discussed many
times
over the last few years, and generally it seems to be centered on
Storvik
and the surrounding area. It seems very exclusive. When Storvik alone
had
300 members many years ago, Windmasters had less than 40. Now we have 
grown, and that area is still the dominant one. While Atlantia continues
to 
struggle to expand in many other southern areas, you want to separate. 
Putting a line in the middle of the population will not help the people 
south of it in any way I can see, but I can see the southlands here 
suffering for their perceived exclusion if nothing else. Look at how
many 
startup shires never make it. There are a lot of names that never made
it 
on the list or simply disappeared because surrounding areas did not 
support them enough. The struggle alone was too hard. Once your 
principality is established, and those within it get that "special
feeling",
just how many will really think of those outside it the same way? 
Less I'll bet. Will you still travel? For how long? I recall someone 
writing about being asked if the South could survive if the principality 
happened. Clearly the idea had occurred to them both, for good reason.

> I am sorry that you cannot mesh the idea of love of Atlantia and support
> for a northern principality within your own mind.  The fact that you
> cannot conceive it does not make it false.
> 
> Magnus, the fact that I favour something that you think will be dangerous
> to Atlantia does not make me suddenly become the Antichrist.

I don't believe Antichrist was mentioned at all. I am concerned with
what
I see as happening to our kingdom. It was supposed to be a private
missive.
Kate should not have forwarded it to the list.

>  Why didn't
> you ask me about it?  By your own admission you have read the website;
 
Actually, no, I read what you put on the Merryrose, and listened to what
others had to say. With my disability I have enough stress without
dealing
with reading the TNNP list too. I believe that a polling will show a
better
view than that list will, especially if broken down into areas.

> I know that you have sent me e-mail many times in the past, why did you not
> speak to me, and say: "Dafydd, I see this as bad" ?  I would not have been
> offended by your honesty and bluntness in a personal note.  But I am very
> distressed that your opinion of me could be so changed, and yet you would
> not once speak to me about it.  And even more distressed that you would
> speak so disparagingly about me and my motives to a third person without
> ever taking up the matter with me.
> 
> Dafydd ap Gwystl
> 
> Please, everyone, let us not demonize people who disagree with us.  The
> fact that someone else has a different idea does not make them evil.

I don't dislike you, I dislike what I see you as doing, and you seem so 
adamant about doing it that discussing it seemed out of the question. I
see what you are doing as divisive and not benefitting the rest of the
population. Used to thinking of the kingdom as a whole, I question
what's
to be gained and why you want it so badly. I am loyal to the kingdom as
a
whole, and of course to my local barony, but that does not mean that I
want
to cut out the middle of the kingdom and slight the rest. In my view, 
too many people I know have worked too hard for too long to build
Atlantia
to partition it. I am not thinking of "my" area, I am thinking of the
whole.

This view may make me unpopular with some, and I am sorry that your 
feelings are hurt, but it is an opinion and an honest one. It was 
never meant to be forwarded to this forum. Who has not an opinion about
politics and politicians? Is that not exactly what you are doing here?

Magnus