On Allies...

As I've previously said, whatever your Great And Noble Cause is, I'm not your ally.

I may support your cause, but not unconditionally and not without limits. Let me give you an example:

At an event supporting The Cause someone says something at best inept and at worst inappropriate (and in either case giving a prime textbook example of the wrong time and the wrong place) to person W.
W then blogs about it and an almighty internet shitstorm kicks off, including high luminaries of The Cause either supporting W or trying (badly) to calm the situation down (along the lines of "worse things happen at sea"), complete with all manner of inappropriateness by the more lunatic fringes. Eventually this caused a schism and the formation of a whole new little clique largely opposed to the luminaries that were trying to calm things down and get things back to actually working on The Cause.

Fast forward a few years, and at a different event for The Cause and person X says something at best inept and at worst inappropriate (lacking the ability to read minds then I don't know which, along with the fact. Person Y then (infused with righteous indignation) intercedes and basically tears person X a new one at great length, in a crowded place, in front of many other people.
At some point person Z has a quiet chat with person Y, along the lines of "perhaps starting with the nuclear option wasn't exactly proportionate" and then blogged about it at some point shortly afterwards to that effect.

Cue the clique, who decide that Z having a quiet word about premature nucleation was being any number of varieties of privilege-blinkered, oppression-enabling and any other combination of bad. And of course they were saying that he should lose his status of ally, as if they were in a position of authority to say who qualifies and who (and when) becomes unworthy.


If the guardians of your sacred cause are more concerned with the ideological purity of their fellow members than the cause itself, as seems to be the case in this instance then you find yourself asking whether it would be better to just support from the sidelines, or just lurk instead.