Jonathan Chance: So What is the Official List of Things You Want Me to Remain Silent About

[Crazyhorse]

In the third thread cited in the OP Hank Beecher wrote:

@Hank_Beecher

What percentage of Americans do you think this actually applies to? Because when I mention people who “would have you killed for being gay, having consensual sex, or for disbelieving religion” we are talking about a* majority* of Egyptian and Pakistani Muslims.

He stated that the majority of Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt would have you killed for various religious beliefs or sexual preferences.

Der Trihs replied:

@Der_Trihs

The great majority. Which is why we constantly are doing exactly that.

He countered that the majority of Americans kill people for being Muslim, having brown skin, for profit, or just for fun.

In response to this exchange Der Trihs received the only warning, and it was allegedly because he made a sweeping generalization without facts to back it up. Was Hank Beecher ever asked to provide evidence that the majority of the millions of Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt would have anyone killed? Or told that this type of criticism does nothing to help Muslims improve their situation?

@Jonathan_Chance

Der Trihs, you must learn to rein this in. You continue to allow your strongly held political beliefs to take you too far.

Your statement that the great majority of Americans kill people for being Muslim, being brown, for profit or just for fun is - to my moderator’s eyes - no different than if you had said “the great majority of blacks will steal” or “the great majority of French are smelly” or something else equally ridiculous.

Just because the group you are being prejudiced is your own - Americans - doesn’t make it less odious. There’s a strong current of self-criticism in American culture and that’s a good thing. But your version of self-lambasting is entirely negative and not geared towards improvement - which criticism should be.

If you must be so offended by the actions of Americans that you must resort to rhetoric of this kind, please take it to the BBQ Pit where it is better served.

This is a warning. Don’t do it again.

I try to stay out of Great Debates in general but to me this appears to be a mod chastizing Der Trihs for his beliefs not his posts. Since when do poster’s words need to be geared toward improving American culture if critical of it? Since when can a poster be warned for “being wrong” or in the mod’s view “wrong headed” in their beliefs? And if they can why would the statement that the majority of Muslims would have you killed for your religious views be passable when 2 posts later the statement that the majority of Americans would kill a Muslim for whatever reason receive a warning?

It has long been my understanding that the moderation staff here does not intervene in factual disputes by demanding a poster provide factual basis for their claims or shut up, which is basically what JC is doing here. In other cases in the past I can recall mods saying that if a poster makes claims without any factual basis they will be proven wrong and/or ignored by other posters, and there is no need for moderators to start deciding whose arguments have more merit than others.

Reading the other 2 threads cited, it does appear to me that Jonathan Chance has either been tasked with, or has tasked himself with, singling out Der Trihs.