Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to You owe me an apology

Now That Was A Poster Child For Either Dishonesty or Alzheimers
M.A.E. — (archived)

I never accused you of treason. I defended Gary or anyone else's right to accuse others of treason and took you to task for trampling on Gary's right to speak out and I still stand by that. As a matter of fact Gary never accused anyone specific of treason. He spoke generally that some on the board were speaking treason (how many is debatable). You will not receive any apology from me for standing up for someone’s right to speak out. The fact that you think this is a crime is exactly why my opinion of you has sunk so low. The whole concept of freedom of speech is that no one has the right to decide whose ideas are too despicable to speak. It is better for truly despicable thoughts to be freely spoken and vociferously rejected by the public at large.

You may feel Gary's comments and mine fall into that category. I don't, but the point is you were by no means defending freedom of speech by jumping on him, nor were the liberals by ganging up on me. What you and others were effectively defending was the right to say anything regardless of negative consequences to our country. Free speech protects the right to do that as well as the right to criticize such actions using whatever words a person chooses. As moderator of the habitablezone you are under absolutely no obligation to uphold true freedom of speech. However don't expect me to allow you to trample on free speech while claiming to protect it.

Off course I went beyond that to say accusations of treason were reasonable under certain circumstances and I stand by that as well. My concern was inadvertently or intentionally providing support in the form the terrorists most needed (reducing public support for the war - validated by decreasing public support) while your concern and that supposedly of many others that such accusations would hinder criticism of the war have proven totally baseless as I predicted at the time. Not to mention the whole premise of actual criminal prosecutions resulting from such accusations which was an absolute farce. Now please evaluate the comments above in the correct context that I believe there was plenty to criticize about the conduct of the war, legitimate issues regarding going to war, and that any speech does not constitute the crime of treason as defined by the US constitution (which is not a universal dictionary for the English language as some here seem to think). I did not accuse anyone of treason based even on its broad definition although I do think a good case for it could be made in a few instances. And for those who still want to argue only very narrow definitions of treason are appropriate, treason once covered sleeping with the king's wife. That was back when loyalty to King and country were considered the same thing and the general meaning of treason as betraying your country was applied.

This is a whole other can of worms though it is definitely related. My feelings about dishonest debate tactics started from the actions of many here during that debate. However, I don’t see any point in repeating more than this brief synopsis of the arguement. If people can’t even agree on the need for promoting open and honest debate, there is no way there is going to be any change in the feelings on this controversial issue. And don't worry I'm officially giving up on my campaign for honest debate at the habitable zone as of 01/01/07 if ears continue as deaf as they have so far. There are many other things I can spend my time on other than a hopeless cause.

And Tony was that civil? Was Robert's post I'm replying to?

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (111 posts)