Something has been bugging me for a really long time and I have to get if off my chest.
I’m an easygoing person, a get-along guy. I’m also an even-tempered, non-excitable person who wouldn’t dream of hamming it up like a drama queen just to discourage all opposition to my viewpoint. That said, I declare that we at the SDMB are witness to some of the worst examples of dishonesty, selfishness, and downright evil in all of human history.
The phenomenon is so widespread I hardly think it’s necessary to include links. We’ve all seen it happen. It starts with a simple disagreement. Someone disagrees especially strongly with the opinion of another poster, and questions whether such opinions should be allowed free expression in a community devoted to fighting ignorance. This inevitably precipitates the response that all opinions are welcome to be expressed, and if certain posters don’t like them, they’re free to ignore them or find another message board.
This is usually met with the counter-argument that, if a person believes that such opinions are dangerous and should be restricted, they should not be denied the right to express that belief, and if it makes others uncomfortable, they are free to disregard them and move on.
But are the rights of those who disagree with allowing such opinions free expression more important than the rights of those who hold that the belief that such opinions should be restricted must be supressed? I certainly don’t think so. Still, I must admit that it would be unjust to silence those who believe in banning the opinion that the belief that certain opinions should not be allowed, or at least confined to the appropriate forum. They are, after all, entitled to their opinions.
Then some asshole has to go and cross the line.
In oozes some drooling, obnoxious, goat-fellating, head-up-his-ass troll whose pathetic little life depends entirely on weighing in with his moronic, ill-informed, bigoted and thoroughly un-American opinion that the people of this message board don’t have the right to protect ourselves from the insidious bile spewed by those who would restrict the right of others to advocate the banning of speech related to the suppression of statements to the effect that the expression of certain opinions should be prohibited.
Don’t these fucking vermin have anything better to do? Are their lives that meaningless, that they have to shit all over interesting and engaging threads just to see their odious names on the screen? Ooh, big man! Posting your sub-moron opinions on a message board just to stir shit, that’s really brave. Meanwhile, these fuckers wouldn’t dare say anything like it to my face.
And to top it all off, I just know some oversensitive prick is going to come along and imply that I’m a fascist or something. I’m not. I just think that this community would be a lot better if we didn’t have to deal with certain beliefs that are obviously over-the-line crackpot paranoid lunacy, namely the delusion that the belief that the opinion that the expression of the idea that certain opinions should be suppressed needs to be restricted ought to be suppressed is something that people should be required to keep to themselves. It’s just not right. It’s a cancer that’s slowly draining the life out of this community, and it needs to stop.
That’s my opinion, and I won’t be silenced. If you don’t like it, go find another message board!
