Homosexuality Thread Lock

[AlexM]

How can we have political discussion if people can't express their beliefs? Even more, how can we help bigots overcome their bigotry if we can't talk to them about their beliefs? There's a big difference between personal attacks and explaining your beliefs. Many are offended by the idea of drug legalization as well. Are threads concerning that topic going to start getting locked next?

[NT!]

ATF

[AlexM]

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ATF

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You know, I was looking through online slang dictionaries to find out what this meant. Didn't get it until Iron used it in context. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[iron81]

I'd move this to ATF, but threads on this topic are getting locked over there too. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

We can have plenty of political discussion. However, when one bases their beliefs on racism or other bigotry, it won't be permitted. It is true that Stu was very respectful in that thread. However, bigots can be respectful: up until the 1930's or so, legitimate scientists were coming up with theories about how black people were inferior to whites. Its not our job to help bigots from overcoming bigotry, its my job to prevent bigoted messages from being spread.

For more explanation, search my other posts on this topic in the last few days here and in ATF. I'm not going to let this thread run for very long, so say your peace now.

[Propertarian]

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Its not our job to help bigots from overcoming bigotry, its my job to prevent bigoted messages from being spread.

[/ QUOTE ] This is the bottom line on this subject.

And I think 2+2 should allow the homosexuality thread; the fact of the matter is that 2+2 DOES NOT allow it, so Iron must lock it.

[AlexM]

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However, when one bases their beliefs on racism or other bigotry, it won't be permitted.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could easily make the argument that 95% of the posts in this forum are based on bigotry. It's bigotry to not allow drug users to have their drugs. I find both sides of the abortion issue to be chock full of bigotry. Shall we ban someone every time they use the term "pro-death" instead of "pro-choice" or "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life" or maybe every time someone says "jackbooted thuggery". This is all bigotted behavior. This isn't about bigotry, this is about political correctness run amuck over one specific form of bigotry, and while I would agree with banning a post like this in most of the forums, doing it in the Politics forum on an opnion that million of Americans share is equivalent to an official position by the moderators saying "Democrats good, Republicans bad".

[Propertarian]

We can't escape the use of judgement, and must draw the line somewhere. The most obvious bigotry, or that which is considered by most to be bigotry, can still be avoided via this policy.

[AlexM]

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We can't escape the use of judgement, and must draw the line somewhere. The most obvious bigotry, or that which is considered by most to be bigotry, can still be avoided via this policy.

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No, we don't have to draw the line anywhere. You cannot have political discussion without the freedom to express opinions that people disagree with. And "the most obvious bigotry" is a bunch of B.S. That statement itself expresses bigotry towards Stu's beliefs. Shall we delete your post now? Oh wait, I've expressed bigotry towards your bigotry of his bigotted beliefs. GG me!

[Propertarian]

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No, we don't have to draw the line anywhere.

[/ QUOTE ] Actually, Iron does, because that is his job.

But I agree with you that we shouldn't have to draw the line.

[DVaut1]

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I'm not going to let this thread run for very long, so say your peace now.

[/ QUOTE ]


I strongly disagree with Stu's banning, with the locking of the thread he started, and most of all, with the over-arching 2p2 policy.

I could be particularly long-winded in my opposition, so I'll try to limit it to as few as words as possible:

The current 2p2 policy is absurdly subjective. I'm an adult (and so should everyone else who browses this site) and I don't need mods and admins deciding for me what's racist, or bigoted, and what I should or should not be exposed to; I like iron, VR, and Cola, but if I needed a net-nanny I'd download some parent control software. I think Stu is downright foolish, and I didn't need a mod to tell me that. I'm at least humble enough to concede mine shouldn't be the final say on the matter (but not quite humble enough to stop myself from expressing my indignation here [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

Onto more specifics of the policy:

"Furthermore, we have many young people here and do not have the means to stop and explain this stuff in the proper detail that it would require."

If 2p2 admins. really do believe many young people are here (lets say, for the sake of the argument, 'young' = under 18), then the admins should have a lot of ethical concerns outside of what these kids are being exposed to on the Politics forum.

If we're talking about "young" people who are over 18, then the pretentiousness and hubris of the 2p2 policy is beyond the pale. If Stu is posting bigoted material, or if some posters are anti-Semitic revisionist historians, then I’d like to see the mods/admins credentials -- why they should be esteemed as the objective and ultimate arbiters of what’s “dishonest” or “meant to sway minds for hatred”, outside of “they run the place”.

I expect that “we run the place, we’re going to decide this stuff” is the only answer to this question. That’s understandable. Since that’s the case, however, we should stop pretending this is at all a place for anything resembling legitimate debate. It's essentially the place for some amount of docile debate, limited by moderators' and admins' unavoidably subjective tastes and judgements.

/rant. Cue the "lolz shutup and stop whining, Stu was an obvious bigoted troll".