Redacted (once again I am too toxic to be a upright member of this blog)

Redacted

I have just finished commenting in the umpteenth diary this primary season that cited right-wingers to make points against Obama. This phenomenon, has gone from being hillariously insane (SusanHu citing Debbie Schlussel), to just sad (witness this weekend's rally round Pat friggin' Buchannon) to downright offensive (today's diary citing accessory to war crimes Bill Kristol) to outright frightening (the citation of White Natalist site V.Dare- though this was thankfully removed after it was pointed out to the author).  Frankly, the cognitive dissonacance that enables some of the Hill supporters to do this is in a way impressive; remember in many cases these are the same people who are staging a reasonably justified boycott of the Daily Kos (but feel free to turn MYDD into a hybrid of Freerepublic and Stormfront), yet I beseech that they and the more ardent Obama supporters (including myself in some cases) quit doing this; quit citing scum.

Please these are the same people (edit: the people who are being quoted not the diarists themselves) who called Hillary a lesbian and Bill a rapist, the same people who view Vince Foster's suicide as a hit, the same people who injected terms like Mena, and Travelgate into the national lexicon, and frankly accepting there smears of Obama only lends credence to those who would do us and our Republic itself, harm. In closing I would like to pose a question, do you believe the stuff they wrote in the 1990s- was Hillary a murderous lesbian who stuck by her sexual predator of a husband solely for political power; and if not why do you believe them now?

THE CASE FOR CENSORSHIP

As Democrats we have long held the mantle for "freedom of speech",  We have been the standard bearers, frequently at our own expense.  The ACLU  has filed amicus briefs and acted as representation on behalf of the American Nazi party, the KKK, Larry Craig, Rush Limbaugh and many other groups and individuals we as Democrats find personally abhorrent.  We, Democrats, stood in unity to protect freedom of speech from the constant assaults by those who would relegate our Bill of Rights to a Bill of suggestions.

One of the most cherished privileges we possess in America, is freedom of speech, as guaranteed under the First Amendment. It is not only a privilege, it is a right, under the Constitution of the United States. A wise man however, once said:

"With great freedoms, comes greater responsibility".

 
The obligation to exercise restraint and good judgment concerning free speech is a topic of debate in our society. When does freedom of speech go too far?

We know one cannot scream fire in a crowded public venue without legal complications.  There is an assumed responsibility for  the physical safety of others when making such public demonstrations.  Then the question is;  Are we only concerned about physical safety? Are there other occasions or actions that would fall under review? The courts have generally protected what has come to be known as "symbolic speech", wearing hats, clothing or accessories like jewelry etc. that may contain messages or images, but even "symbolic speech" is not always allowed.

The court has emphasized the need for consideration for the "personal sensibilities of the audience."  This is where I will begin my case for censorship.

The personal sensibilities of the audience.

MyDD is a private venture, it can, and has written it's own rules for engagement.  They, MyDD, are, in many ways like the Boy Scouts of America, they can pretty much arbitrarily decide who can and who cannot be a part of their organization. They write the rules and we comply or we get shown the door, as it should be.  But the basis for our participation as described by MyDD is:

MyDD is a group blog designed to discuss campaigns, the progressive movement, and political power.

 

The operative word there seems to be to be "DISCUSS", not accuse, threaten, insult, disparage, slam, smear or blame. To that end, there are even rules to which we all have agree to abide.

Users who are bashing or attacking any other user on the site, including authors of diaries and front page postings, will be banned. Candidates and politicians are fair game (but that doesn't mean you can use inflammatory language against candidates).

 
It is here, with these rules that I have a problem.  Simply put, we are not following the intent and spirit of those rules, perhaps it is our belief in freedom of speech that is preventing us from enforcing rules that apply to everyone.

There are so many inflammatory diaries and comments on this site now, that at times, one can hardly tell if it is a Democratic site or the "freerepublic".  I have gotten so frustrated with the name calling and vitriol that spews forth from some supporters of both remaining candidates, that I've resorted to filling the personal mailboxes of the three front page writers.  I am not a "nanny" type of person. but as a "Trusted User", I have on more than a few occasions found myself uprating user comments that were unfairly troll rated, and troll rating other comments that were rated "MOJO" for absolutely no other reason than they were written by a "cohort".

You also have a duty to read comments posted by untrusted users (you are the only ones who can!) and rate them up if they deserve to be viewable. We hate to see users become untrusted, and want them to rejoin the community, and rating them up when they post good comments is the only way for that to happen.

What I have routinely found, is that the hidden comments largely come from a small but active group of people who continuously uprate each other's comments and diary's just to gain TU status.  They are then free to post absolutely fictitious and libelous statements and diaries at will.  A simple review of the diary list, recommended and otherwise will reveal very little in the way of substantive discussions about:

campaigns, the progressive movement, and political power.

rather what you will see is something very unbecoming of a Democratic site.  I'm not really very concerned if individuals here personally support Hillary or, Barack, but I am concerned that the level of childishness here has made many of us so uncomfortable and offended "The personal sensibilities of the audience" that it may be time to use censorship to save us from ourselves.  I know already that this would be a difficult task for the moderators as the very success of this site depends on page views and hits.  It is after all as mush a "product" as it is a forum.

We as "Democrats" have turned against ourselves to such a degree that wemay indeed be causing irreparable harm. Neither candidate will ever be able to recover in the eyes of at least those of us who remain on this site.  It is increasingly looking to me like there is a small but very vocal group of Hillary supporters will leave this site if Obama wins or at least will become little more than antagonists at every turn to those who supported Obama.  The same can, and should also be said about a small but vocal group of Obama supporters.

Anyone who has been on this site either as a diary writer or lurker for more than a few months could not possibly have missed the de-evolution of the "public side of this site into something akin to a "Freeper" zone. I have nothing but respect for the front page writers and most of the public diary writers, but seriously, what have we come to when the number one recommended diary, with 45 recommends and 180 comments, at least at the moment of this writing, is a diary about "Saturday Night live"  and a serious diary about "Al Qaeda, Impeachment, and Iraq" has no recommends and no comments?  Is this really what we as Democrats are all about?  Proof of our candidates greatness or fallibilities is best described by a satirical television program?  How about a youtube of Bill Moyers or Amy Goodman, might they be better sources of political discourse?

I know I am going to get troll rated by many, many people now that I have openly called for reason, reason in the form of censorship, but if that is the price I have to pay so be it, and I will gladly post the first comment to my diary so you can troll rate me, but I hope I will at least strike a nerve in the silent majority who lurk here and who tire of the childish behavior that abounds.  Use your status as a TU, censor those who do a disservice to our Democracy and our Democratic candidates.  A little time spent searching a users comments and diary's will quickly point out who the "Freepers" are.  If every comment and diary  written is an affront to one of our Democratic candidates, they are most likely a "Freeper" trying to sabotage our discussions.  Let's send them back to the hellish place of their origin.

Let's return to civility before it's too late, and this is a plea to everyone.

The controversy over Huckabee's role in the rapist dumond's release illustrates how deranged the right wingers are now and were back in the 90s. Now they are disassociating themselves from Huckabee's actions. Huckabee is not an evil guy, but he is a sucker and it is clear that this guy fell for the same anti Clinton hysterical propoganda in the 90s and the following link gives us an idea into his mindset back then because I believe a lot of conservatives probably read it back then. I think Huckabee realized what an idiot he was and is terrified of looking foolish and he is desperately blaming Clinton for his own foolish actions.

But back to the freepers and other right wingers.
Fortunately an isolated freeper was honest enough to provide a reality check link to his fellow freepers who were railing at Huckabee for making them look bad when they were just as bad as Huckabee in buying any hysterical anti- Clinton story.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38d06 cee1158.htm

Provided in this link are some comments by freepers which express concern over Dumond.

Justice in Arkansas looks like a dicey affair, with or without the Clinton effect. Looks like sombody had a lot of fun and games at Mr Dumond's expense. We hope Wayne can recover.

Along with that comment is this gem of a comment that illustrates how deranged these idiots were

Does the name Idi Amin occur to you also while reading this travesty? I pray that America will one day learn what kind of monster they elected to the highest office of our land!

Now freepers are commenting on this past link on Free Republic  by saying that Huckabee had access to verify this information better than they did. True, but it just shows that if they were wrong on this, why don't they think they were fooled on a lot of other issues?

I sometimes go lurking on the rightwing sites to see what they are thinking, talking about and thank my stars I am not a republican.
But, tonight I realized something very troubling about us.
While the Freepers all have a candidate they support, they discuss the topic and their individual support for one candidate or another without flaming.  
If someone posts a negative about one it's framed in a way that is not like a personal attack.  And they discuss it with each other in a somewhat respectful way. They will joke about someone or say they think, say Rudi is a dog, but, there is no flaming and yelling and accusing.
This really bothers me.  We are suppose to be the ones who can discuss and debate without getting nasty.  We are suppose to be the open minded ones who respect the other person's right to support who they want.  We are not suppose to flame and try to pit one against the other.
But, for the past week this is us.  We act like we expect freepers to act.  They are acting like we are suppose to act.
I feel like I'm in backwards world.  next, Bush will be known as a scholar.  I cannot handle this.  It's totally wrong.
Come on people.  We need to show we are better than them.  We have to find someway to disagree with a candidate or each other without sounding like we are attacking and being high and mighty and mean.  We have to show who the better thinkers are.
I say, let's try to bury at least some of the hatchet, quit playing 'gottcha' with the candidates and have real grown up discussions about the candidates that respects the candidate and the supporters.
I don't want us to be worse than Freepers!  geez!  shudder.

My friend Wes has a great blog, read minimally out there in world. Mostly he uses it to vent his rage against the insanity of the Bush presidency.

Of late, in some posts, he has been having very interesting discussions in the comments. I guess some folks out there are attempting to engage him and prove to him that he is wrong. Being Wes, he just reads and tries to respond rationally. Wes is never convinced that his is the only point of view, and is open to consider things and sift through for the truth.

But I have decided to step in and defend Wes.