You have the freedom to yell fire in a public place when there is no fire, at least until you are caught and punished.
Censorship on ET. I believe that censorship should be practiced on ET, but that it should be handled in the following manner. If one is censored by a particular moderator, an opportunity for appeal to a board of moderators should be available. We are all human, and it is possible for a moderator to have his or her own personal agenda from time to time, or maybe be having a bad day, etc. A board allows a review process by a group, who can come to a more reasonable and objective conclusion on whether or not something posted was really so objectionable as to be in need of censoring. The only problem I can see with this process, would be the ego of the moderator, who might take it very personal and then have an agenda against the poster who filed the appeal and won. I would hope if that situation were to come to pass, that Baron would remove the moderating responsibilities from the person who is not mature enough to handle that position.
Let's say an annoying snake oil salesman decided to pollute these boards with hundreds of posts every day, touting his 'amazing money making mega stockpimp 5000' trading software. You'd see a use for censorship in that instance, wouldn't you?
\ Actually that exact thing has happened a couple times in the past 4 or 5 years on these boards. I recall a guy who called himself "The Wolf" hawking some option trading program. Not only did he fill the boards but spammed many of us with sales pitches. The members of the boards were on to him immediately and Baron eventually put the kabosh on him. I'm in favor of that. Also when things degenerate into personal invective it serves no purpose except to indicate that the poster can't support his point so he resorts to personal insults. I think the moderator is doing a service by ending those threads or editing a particular post.
Therein lies the reason that you are unlikely to post material that is likely to be censored. That being said and given your wit and wisdom, please do not post something that is unlike you to post, just to make a point that it is possible for you to do so.
Crazy things happened in Florida, and I believe that there were some corrupt things happening as well. However, this is a far cry from turning a democracy into a democracy based on a racist and murderous ideology. Kennedy won his election again Nixon with fraud as well. Is Kennedy similar to Hitler? And the suggestion that the "idealogies of these two" are identical is too absurd. Bush has done nothing to try to push for segregation or genocide. In fact, he was relaxing immigration laws before September 11th. Even if Bush has demonstrated xenophobia (again, he was actually relaxing immigration laws, especially for Mexicans, before September 11th), this is so far removed from the depictions, demonization, racist propganda and violent condoning that Hitler utilized to seize and maintain power. Hitler assasinated his political opponents, turned a democracy into a totalitarian state (which is more complete consolidation of power and brainwashing of the masses than occurs under even a typical dictatorship). On the night of Kristalnacht, after the Nazis had encouraged the masses to loot and attack Jews (soon to be followed by attacks on many other groups, and following the massacres of those with mental disabilities), Hitler charged the Jews money for "causing" their own victimhood. Bush? Never has he done anything that even deserves comparison to such. Making such comparisons is an insult to all the people who suffered under this nightmare, just as comparisons between slavery and contemporary questionable grievances in this country is an insult to those who suffered and persevered through slavery and the lynchings that followed. [/B][/QUOTE] First, there is evil in this world. To deny this is to engage in moral equivocation. When people want to force their twisted and oppressive sexist and religious views on everyone else, and seek to murder all those who don't and won't believe what they do, this is evil. Hitler was evil. bin Laden is evil. Moreover, Bush has never tried to demonize N. Koreans nor the Afghan people. He stated quite the opposite many times. He referred to evil regimes, headed by evil people. [/B][/QUOTE] I guess this is supposed to be funny. But being serious, Hitler started killing the mentally retarded and insane before long, and he started setting the stage for genocide from before he even was elected (beginning with his attempted coup, and then the writing of Mein Kampf-sp??-, which is a best seller in many Arab countries). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The murder of Bosnian muslums was very wrong. However, the muslums engaged in atrocities as well, and KLA was employing terrorist tactics (as it still does in Macedonia) from before the Serbs began their massacres. However, what Milosovic did was very wrong. N. Ireland is a political dispute with religious under tones (often simply an excuse).
This sound reasonable, but how would you choose the board? And don't say that it would be left to an ET vote, otherwise traderRX, Protrader1, FPC, Katrina Johns, SuperEgo, and 8754 other personalitites that are FPC would get into the board. nitro
Yes; point taken. I was referring to the censorship of ideas though; not the misuse of the site for commercial purposes ...