I got an idea
Just play by the rules and it won't matter what system they use!!
See, here's the problem. When the Germans were killing all of the Jews, they were playing by the rules. If they had helped a Jew escape to freedom, they would have been violating the rules. Sometimes the rules are the problem. Society would be much improved if people would
learn that making something a rule doesn't necessarily make it a good thing. There are a lot of bad rules in the world and a lot of bad rules here... unless you like what Hitler, Saddam, Stalin and the Church have done to people. Learn from the mistakes of the past rather than continually repeating them.
The second problem is pointed out in a post by PrincetonGuy (post #46) and another by myself (Post #54). Did you read them? Both of those illustrate members playing by the rules and suffering for the misdeeds of staff members who refused to play by the rules. And that's going to be a problem anytime you put the power of control anywhere but with the members. As soon as you start appointing at any level, people start to understand that the guy who put them in their position likes them and it gives them a degree of free-reign. Just because you've not had problems while playing by the rules doesn't mean that everyone else has had the same experience. Your thoughts and beliefs likely align with the upper staff members in the areas where you post so they pretty much leave you alone. But many of these people are simply incapable of understanding that even people with dissimilar beliefs and opinions should be allowed the same opportunity to express them as the upper staff members would want for themselves. That's called "fairness" and "equality" and it's something which, outside of the past few months, is completely foreign to this place.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-- Voltaire
What did I hear constantly from one of the Administrators who continually violated the rules in order to get rid of anything he didn't like?
"If you would just obey the rules, you wouldn't have any problems." What he meant was;
"If you would just start presenting my opinions instead of your own, you wouldn't have any problems."
Sometimes you have to apply mental processes rather than just accepting someone's pre-packaged standards. Think it through. If it does no real harm to anyone, there is no reason to even suggest ruling against it. And there is no opinion anyone can present that actually harms anyone. But banning someone or shutting out a segment of opinions is harmful to the whole of every society/community ever subjected to such fascist tactics. That's precisely why the founding fathers recognized freedom of speech as so important that they included it in the first amendment to the Constitution. Do you think they didn't come up against friction on that idea? Do you think no one in American society thought that freedom of speech was a radical and dangerous idea? You'd be very wrong. Once people get used to being regulated, even in the most ridiculous ways, a certain percentage of them will take to the idea that it's a rule and all rules are good, therefore, eliminating it would be harmful. That seems to be your stance. Whether you see it or not what we're doing here is not dissimilar to what the founding fathers were doing; we're demanding the same simple rights which should be granted to every person simply because infringing upon those rights is a wrong perpetrated against humanity.
How much more might we understand now if Galileo had been allowed to present his information instead of being forced to lie to everyone and claim that his information was wrong and then imprisoned to keep his views from the public? How much sooner might we have attempted to gain a better understanding of the universe in which we live had Giordano Bruno been allowed to present his opinions, beliefs and evidences to the public rather than being imprisoned and then burned along with his work to "protect" the public from his "evil" ideas about planets around other stars?
Both of those men and countless others died horrendous deaths in complete humiliation for not playing by the rules. In the case of Bruno, he knew as a Christian monk that it was against the rules to comment against the teachings of the church but he did so anyway and he was right. Galileo traveled to Rome to obtain exclusive permission from the pope to write his book. The pope granted permission under the condition that he provide geocentrism equal time to the heliocentrism Galileo wished to present. Galileo did as he was asked. But the pope felt that he chose some of the weaker arguments for geocentrism and therefore, Galileo was charged and found guilty of heresy. It's a story not terribly dissimilar, in substance, to some of the stories you'll find in Posts 46 and 54.
The rules, standards and practices here are all designed to maintain a level of ignorance among the members. (There is no valid claim that you're protecting anyone against words. Words are not a destructive weapon, they're a tool.) This place can be an incredible stimulant to learning or it can emulate the tactics of the pre-17th century church. We were starting to see a little light but Lee Dodd has plunged us, involuntarily, back into the dark ages were "wrong-thinkers" must be banned (imprisoned), to keep them from "harming" the public, and "dangerous opinions", (anything that offends any "right-thinker" for any reason), must be purged from these pages lest anyone learn that what they've been told their whole lives fails miserably in the face of logic.
Censorship is wrong. It's
always wrong; everywhere and every-when it's employed. That's why people like Hitler found it so incredibly useful that they suggested their ideas and doctrines would have failed completely without it. They were right.
"Only the continuous and steady application of the methods for suppressing a doctrine, etc., makes it possible for a plan to succeed."
-- Adolf Hitler
Do you know what was meant by "methods for suppressing a doctrine"? He's talking about censorship; the same thing you're promoting when you suggest that everyone should just follow the rules, no matter what rules are employed.
You choose; Hitler or Voltaire?
