your founder just eviscerated your "movement" dude

the "movement" he was referring to was the militant straight edge "movement". I put "movement" in quotes to emphasize the fact that the people associated with the whole militant thing are missing the point entirely, which is exactly what Ian is saying and I agree with completely. It's like Christians killing people just because they don't believe in the Christian god , do you really think that's what Jesus wanted?(if he was real).... not trying to compare Ian to any kind of god, nobody thinks of him like that.

Wait, so Straight edge is mainly just living a drug-free life and listening to hardcore?
Why is there an entire topic to explain that? Or am I missing out on something? :)

It's not about listening to a specific genre of music, people don't understand that there is an entire subculture that the music is apart of. have you ever wondered why hardcore has so many different sounds but is still hardcore? it's because its not just music. Honestly I don't expect you to understand ,I don't expect anybody on here to understand either you live it or you don't. there's more to it then you think.

So, explain!

You don't have to be straight-edge to be into hardcore punk, that's not what hardcore punk was originally about. Bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Bad Brains weren't straight-edge and Poison Idea took enough drugs to kill a herd of elephants. Straight-edge took the danger and fun out of hardcore and turned it into the preachy bull**** we get today.

I think domman123 means that you have to be into hardcore to be straight-edge.
Just like you have to be into punk to be... punk. :).

"Domman123" is 'stupid man 123' in Dutch, by the way.
It's a good thing I'm the only dutchie here :D>

Lol you don't have to be into hardcore to be straight-edge either, anyone can choose to live a drug-free lifestyle. It's their own personal choice regardless of what music they listen to.

I think that's what he's trying to explain, that being 'straight edge' has something to do with a pop-culture, as much as being punk has something to do with looking like a punk, being anarchistic AND listening to the music. You can look like a punk and not be one and you can listen to punk without being a punk.

I think all of this is bull**** in the end, but I think this is what he means.
So... Explain the true meaning of Straight Edge to me, as opposed to being drug-free, please ;).
And while you're at it, explain to me why you want to have it explained.

I'm interested in hearing this explaination too.

And taking the lyrics from the Minor Threat song 'Out of Step' which further reinforced the straight-edge beliefs, I'm wondering which of the following has he broken:

"don't smoke, don't drink, don't f*ck"