Thank you all for the support and warm welcome. I got a few sarcastic replies and the board owner threatens to boot me if I don't post 3 more posts in 24 hours. Nothing like conservatives supporting each other.
So I was trolling over at DailyKos and I saw a similar post from someone who called themselves "Progressive_Real_Estate_Broker."
You?
No, I'm joking. But here's the thing...
You join the forum and the very first (and only) post you make is a plug for your business? I am a business owner and a founding member of this little group and I have never once mentioned my business or tried to use this site to promote it. I don't discuss my business here and no one here even knows what I do. There are other places on the internet where I do that. Not here. It would be, in my opinion, quite gauche of me to do so. But that's me.
We do not (that I know of) implicitly forbid a member from discussing what he or she does for a living and, with perhaps one or two exceptions, I have no idea what anyone here does, what their social status is or anything else along those lines. And I don't care to know unless it happens to be germane to a discussion topic. It's none of my business.
We absolutely do not allow spam posts and that is why you are getting these reactions. What do you think you have stumbled upon here? Some kind of weird right wing site that has extreme realtor aversion?
No.
We are a community of friends...all conservatives. We come from distinctly different walks of life and we show up here to get away from most of the typical BS relationships that we
have to have on a daily basis...I mean, if I
want to discuss
business all I have to do is get up in the morning and there it is. I come here as a refuge from that to converse with others who share my political and cultural point of view. I CAN'T do that in my business because if I do then, in all likelihood, I drive away a fairly large percentage of my existing and potential customers. I may as well have a bumper sticker on my car that says, "F**k you, Democrats...I don't want your money." In reality, I love doing business with Democrats and other leftists. In my way of thinking, if I can separate them from a substantial portion of their money they can't use it to support left wing causes and I can then use it to support mine. So I don't alienate them by calling myself "Conservative Business Owner" or any other such thing. I don't hide my politics, either, but I don't rub them in everyone's face. To me that's just stupid from a purely business point of view. You may, of course, do whatever you like. I don't care.
But...my personal opinion is that, unless what you do is related to some topic under discussion, you should keep your business to yourself. Please note that I am making a distinction between what you did (with your first post) and outright spam. Had you popped in here and simply made a boilerplate announcement of what you were selling I would have banned you on the spot. Your post did, however, have a smattering of personalization to it so I let it slide and instead gently chided you.
And I DO mean that I
gently chided you because, hey...let's face it...you deserved a harsher hand if for no other reason:
Folks. Do we support our own?
There is a
familiarity in this opener that assumes a lot. It's like crashing a party and immediately engaging in deeply personal exchanges with complete strangers..."Hey, Robert, can I call you Bob? Say, how are things between you and the missus?" Someone does that at my house and they get shown the door. Quickly.
Perhaps you aren't looking for the sort of thing that we offer here...I don't know. But if you are and if you would like another shot at it, I think that you will find that this group is also quite open to the idea. Unlike leftists we can and do forgive and forget. Serious members are difficult to come by and we value them highly. Those who show up here and spam us like a drive by shooting are a dime a dozen and they are banned immediately. So it's up to you. The ball is in your court. If you are really and truly a right wingnut then you will like this place and embrace it for what it is. If you are merely here to use us as a networking opportunity then please spare us the nuisance and delete your account. The choice is yours.