Free Speech

[KillerMuffin]

Have you ever tried sanity? It's a wonderful thing.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Actually, Admiral Poindexter might like that phraseology.

I'll bet it was rough being a kid named "Poindexter."

 

[Guest]

 

[Angel]

ah...but you see muffin. i'm not saying to ban one poster for harassing another. re~read my post .i'm saying we ban a poster who is breaking existing forum rules.

Bratcat has posted things that are against the rules many times. So have other people. The content in question was removed, and the people are still posting.

Should we ban her?

 

[Vilac]

<sigh>
Ok...I just typed out a huge post in regards to everything I missed today.

Unfortunately...the frigging thing was lost when Lit locked up and I booted.

So..fuck me in the ass if I'm going to type it all out again. Valid points or not.

I'll just read.
V~

 

[Problem Child]

I'll bet it was rough being a kid named "Poindexter."

That made him tough enough to make it to Admiral.

 

[phrodeau]

Hanns Schmidt's First Rule of Discourse:

When losing an argument, resort to a little shitty mini rant

 

[KillerMuffin]

When losing an argument, resort to a little shitty mini rant

Hannsypansy, in order for an "argument" to exist, there must be two sides in the argument. You don't argue and you have no side. You're just vomiting letters on the screen and patting yourself on the back for being so bloody clever. I wasn't arguing with you because you are incapable of sustaining intelligent conversation.

Insipidness, thy name is Hannsypansy.

 

[The Heretic]

And voila! everything is fixed! lol...

Do you seriously think Hanns just miraculously showed up on our doorstep one day out of the blue? Do you think that if we ban Hanns he won't just get another screen name in about three minutes?

Actually Laurel has the ability to ban someone based on their IP address (probably by a range of addresses if she wished). If you are on broadband like I am it is not near as easy to get a new IP addy as it is to get an email addy. Even with dialup you generally wind up in a range of IP addys, and a forum admin can always complain to the ISP and otherwise generally make life difficult for someone if they wish to.

Sure there are ways to spoof IP addys, but I serious doubt most of our trolls here have anywhere near the intelligence necessary to implement such a spoof - even if they claim to be a "computer expert".

 

[Guest]

 

[tripleflip]

I believe in Free Speech.


But... we're confusing the issue here. Free Speech only goes so far. I'll take you to a scenario that we all (most all) of us probably learned in school. Free speech is great, but if you ran into a crowded movie theater and screamed at the top of your lungs: "FIRE! There's a FIRE!" with the intent of starting mass panic, that you could easily be thrown in jail.

V~

This issue ALWAYS gets confused. The arguments in favor of free speech were first proposed by philosophers, notably Mill and Milton. In our current frenzy of argument, we never think to return to the originators of the idea to see if their arguments are really good. Instead, we fall back on Oliver Wendell Holms Jr.'s legalese Yogi-isms about fires and theaters. Old OWH is as far back as our thought can take us. We deserve what we get, in the spirit of Santayana's thesis that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

Sorry.

 

[Guest]