WAEL final post - THANKS!!!
- Thread starter TraderZones
- Start date
LOL 
A member of the âBill Frist brigadeâ.
You make Bill proud.
A member of the âBill Frist brigadeâ.
You make Bill proud.
Who are we kidding? WAEL will simply change his name and appear back here in another form.
I don't agree with his banishment, BTW. Was I sick of his endless threads and hysterical (meaning comical as well as rabid) defense of what, IMO, is indefensible? Absolutely.
But should he have been banned because of it? No.
If you're sick of WAEL, just put him on Ignore.
It's not hard. Really. I've got a pretty long Ignore list going.
This is a public internet chat board. If you're an American, you cannot in good faith believe in censorship like this. Heck, if you're a citizen of any supposed "Democratic" country that values free speech you cannot support this censorship.
It isn't exactly a secret that ZZZzzzzzzz and I are not the best of friends, nor Chucky Ells or Doc Vodka, for that matter. But do I think they should be banned? Hell no.
They say things all the time that I believe to be deeply offensive and/or incredibly stupid, but they have every right to say those things, just as I have every right to respond and/or put them on Ignore.
Might as well bring back resinate as a "moderator" if you believe in silencing criticism.
I don't agree with his banishment, BTW. Was I sick of his endless threads and hysterical (meaning comical as well as rabid) defense of what, IMO, is indefensible? Absolutely.
But should he have been banned because of it? No.
If you're sick of WAEL, just put him on Ignore.
It's not hard. Really. I've got a pretty long Ignore list going.
This is a public internet chat board. If you're an American, you cannot in good faith believe in censorship like this. Heck, if you're a citizen of any supposed "Democratic" country that values free speech you cannot support this censorship.
It isn't exactly a secret that ZZZzzzzzzz and I are not the best of friends, nor Chucky Ells or Doc Vodka, for that matter. But do I think they should be banned? Hell no.
They say things all the time that I believe to be deeply offensive and/or incredibly stupid, but they have every right to say those things, just as I have every right to respond and/or put them on Ignore.
Might as well bring back resinate as a "moderator" if you believe in silencing criticism.
You seem to be confused as to what censorship is. It is when an authority from without an organization coerces it to not publish certain information. When a private entity like ET makes a decision to ban someone it is no different than a newspaper deciding not to print a reader's letter to the editor. This is nothing more than a business decision.
Now if they are breaking their own published rules of participation, then maybe you have a beef there. But this is not censorship.
It is not censorship in the sense of "free speech" that hapaboy referred to. There is no right to free speech on a privately owned BB. It is a privilege provided solely by the owner to be allowed to post on ET and entirely subject to his discretion. No law or right demands that ET allow someone to post if ET decides they cannot. Hence - no free speech right.
You have provided but one example of censorship.
An outside force need not be pressuring Baron for this to be censorship. Organizations and private companies censure their own members all the time.
Yes, this is a privately-owned BB. However, it is open to the public and is free.
There are rules of conduct. Did WAEL break those rules? Yes, he did. But the simple truth is, those rules are broken umpteen times every day and only a select few individuals are banned.
Example: WAEL pissed off a lot of people with his anti-Israel threads and rants. He was banned.
ZZZzzzzzz, who has been here much longer under his current alias, has pissed off and offended many more people than WAEL ever will, but is not banned.
When there is inconsistency in application of "rules," with the result being that only a select few are banned on a subjective basis by the authorities that be, in this case Baron, that is a kind of censorship IMO.
More specifically, it is selective expurgation.
Does Baron have the right to do so? Absolutely!! As you said, this is Baron's entity to rule as he sees fit. Of course he can selectively expurgate and censure as much as he likes.
But call a spade a spade.
You attempted to link this to a "free speech" issue in a broader sense, appealing with, "If you're an American, you cannot in good faith believe in censorship like this. Heck, if you're a citizen of any supposed "Democratic" country that values free speech you cannot support this censorship."
What you don't seem to get is that a BB is not free speech - it is privileged speech. You are given the privilege to post on ET - you have no right to "free speech" in the context you put it. The example I gave of a letter to the editor of a newspaper is all the example that is needed, because the same principle applies broadly. Even though the NY Times invites you to participate in their publishing organization by writing in to the editor, you have no "free speech" right to be published in the NY Times. The same principle applies here at ET. The fact that the NY Times often publishes complete crackpot's letters does not in any way mean that other saner letter writers who are not published have been in any way denied their "free speech" rights, because they never had any to begin with.
Let's make it more personal. If you are at the park with your bullhorn and invite passerbys to use it, but only on the condition that you approve of what they will say, is it censorship if you refuse to let some nutjob like ratboy88 use it to proclaim that the Iraq war was a giant conspiracy of insiders who pulled the wool over the eyes of politicians, intel agencies and world leaders during the course of two different presidential administrations? Do "free speech" rights mean that you have an obligation to allow conspiracyboy88 to use your bull horn? Of course not. You can set your own conditions. You could demand that he name names and provide evidence for his assertions before allowing him to use your bullhorn. If he refused or was unable to because he is really just a blowhard who makes outlandish claims just to make himself look important, you would have every right to tell him to, "Get lost you little conspiracy twirp!"