Re: OT posts, an answer, and my sarcasm button (you asked...!)

[dreamofpeace@xxxxxxxx]

Hello,

        I'm completely confused now.  You seem to be saying - and this is
honestly how I'm reading what you wrote, not some of sort of rhetorical
device - that you won't allow messages containing leftist content, but
will allow messages containing rightist content.  Am I reading you
correctly?  I trust that I'm not, but can use an explanation.
        I want to make one thing clear: I am perfectly willing and able
to abide by a standard that says, "no specifically non-game related
political posts".  Fine, a great rule.  I support it.  But then I expect
to be shown the same courtesy.  For example, what you wrote below about
the Geneva Conventions is not something I want to read on this list - it
raises my blood pressure and makes me want to respond to it with a
non-game related political rant.  But if I did, I would be ruled OT and
told to cease and desist.  This is exactly my problem with this list: I'd
like to read it to relax, maybe learn interesting things about guns,
maybe even discuss gaming.  But I can't do that while being constantly
subjected to political views I find offensive *and* that I'm unable to
respond to.  
        My question is simple: why can't we *all* agree to keep the
politics off the list, and spend the time discussing other interesting
things (like guns & games)?  

Sincerely,

Manu



On 21 Apr 2002 23:42:26 -0500 "Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@inav.net>
writes:
> > clarification.  But I maintain that it's only fair if *all* 
> political
> > speech is kept out.  My impression is that only (or mostly) the
> 
> To that, I have this to say:
> 
> 1.  Life isn't fair.
> 
> 2.  What is permitted on the list, by the listmaster, is not the 
> same as
> that which the community will permit.  This does not make us 
> fascists,
> hypocrites, or autocrats.  It just means we're a community.
> 
> It is not government's (e.g., the listmaster's) role to suppress,
> establish or support speech.  If I want to goose-step through 
> Skokie,
> Illinois [*] singing "Springtime For Hitler", the government has 
> zero
> right to stop me.  But the people of Skokie are under no obligation 
> to
> make me feel welcome, to quietly accept my singing, to say "well, 
> that's
> all right then, your viewpoint is just as accepted as ours is"... 
> the
> government makes sure that the people of Skokie don't prevent me 
> from
> airing my views; the government does not, and cannot lawfully, 
> coerce
> Skokie into being quiet while I sing "Deutschland Ueber Alles".  :)
> 
> ([*] Skokie is a predominantly Jewish town in Illinois which, at 
> one
> point, was home to a great many Holocaust survivors.  Hence,
> goose-stepping through Skokie is... well.  Bad.)
> 
> > while right wing views (for example, contempt for the Geneva 
> Conventions)
> 
> I think you're significantly misrepresenting the views of those of 
> us
> who hold skepticism towards the Geneva Conventions.  The Geneva
> Conventions are predicated on the belief that it is, to some 
> degree,
> possible to fight war humanely.  I find that belief roughly 
> equivalent
> to a belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  War is hell, it's
> always been hell, it will always be hell, no amount of codification 
> will
> change that in any appreciable way, and to believe otherwise is 
> folly. 
> The only way to make war at all humane is to do away with it 
> altogether.
> 
> 
> 
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