Hardline is so pathetic. Quasi-religious, right wing nonsense. I've never even met one of them though, I think they all died out a long time ago and got jobs in Fall Out Boy.
The vast majority of the dickhead edgers I've encountered have been part of either the stupid haircut or tuff guy bullshit scenes (which are pretty interchangeable), and they do have quite a few people who go in for the edge. Any chance the majority of the violent and oppressive ones you encountered were also into that stuff? Because that end of hardcore is just full of wankers full stop, edge or no edge. I've been going to hardcore gigs on a pretty regular basis for about ten years including a lot of edge bands and alongside a lot of edgers, and I've been drinking and smoking at most of those gigs. I've never once had anybody say anything to me about it. I've had edgers drive me back from seeing edge bands like Vitamin X, R.A.M.B.O., In The Clear, Good Clean Fun or whoever because they were sober enough to drive, but never one word about my alcohol and nicotine consumption.
I'm not saying there aren't some really obnoxious edgers out there, or some really obnoxious vegans. The thing I find funny about this thread which reminds me of discussions I've ended up in about veganism is that it's full of people going on about how obnoxious, intolerant and self-righteous straight edgers are and precisely no straight edgers saying anything at all about people having a drink. People (not you, I just mean people in general) really can get their knickers in a twist about both things and get incredibly self-righteous about other people's imagined self-righteousness. Unless you're dealing with someone who's actually having a go at you for drinking or eating a cheeseburger why be so insecure about the fact you drink or eat meat that you have to get all defensive and immediately start trying to pick holes in the fact that they don't do things the same as you?
