Brain teaser

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

I would not attempt to tell you what you're thinking. I base what I said on what you SAY, for this is all I have to go on. If you don't think what you say, don't say it. Here's your quote: My point was that from this statement, you say you WANT the rules to be something. The rest of us, fortunately, just base our rulings on the ACTUAL rules, and not what we want them to be.

No Mike, that's not accurate. You seem to base your remarks on what you have decided I meant by what I actually said.

I don't know exactly "who the rest of us" you reference actually is, but I'm pretty confident, based on the officials I've known and worked with for many years, by and large are also hoping the rules thay are charged with enforcing are, "realistic, rational, logical, understandable and explainable".

If you last long enough, doing this thing we do Mike, hopefully you will learn that "knowing" the rules, although extremely important, is only the start of what we do.

Understanding those rules and how they impact and effect the game and applying them to very specific situations that you may be confronted with to keep things in balance, is a never ending learning process that requires, above all, flexibility and sound common sense that enables the rules to be applied as intended, and is largely why we're there.

If you're willing to enforce anything that you honestly don't understand and despite giving it serious thought cannot explain rationally, (notice I'm not including "like" or "agree with", because neither matters much) perhaps you're on the wrong road.