I gave a more specific topic for debate, taking a tentative stand at the same time:
Posts 6,7,8,9,10,11,12, and 20 (at least) dealt with this issue. Post 21, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31 dealt with related issues regarding the website, expressing political opinions or disagreeing with those of other posters.
Post 36, tom says
Surely you can see better than that, tom. It’s not a big deal, except that it’s unnecessary, heavy-handed moderation that didn’t need to happen. You know perfectly well that political and constitutional discussions tend to do well in GD. This topic has definite political and constitutional overtones.
Most political stuff does end up in GD because politics invites arguments, but that wasn’t a debate thread and there are several political threads going in MPSIMS right now.
Looks to me like Tomndebb didn’t just move the thread because of the topic anyway - it’s because most of the posts were silly.
Did you read the thread? There’s debate, among other things, about the constitutionality of moderating a messageboard run on a government website. There’s debate about whether it signifies a genuinely participatory government, or merely creates the illusion of participation.
I didn’t go through the whole thread, I admit. I read the OP, which was a politically-tinged IMHO OP. Then, I read the first thirty posts, or so,or at least up until tom moved it. They all were IMHO responses. If you wanted to bitch at tom for moving it to MPSIMS instead of IMHO, I’d be right there with you, dude.
See, ignorant shit like this is exactly why it belongs in GD: that’d be the proper place to correct Ninjachick’s misunderstanding of the history of judicial interpretation of the first amendment.
While that is what the first amendment says, the fact is that there have been multiple Supreme Court decisions that deal with first amendment (i.e., freedom of expression, religion, press etc.) issues not directly related to laws made by Congress.
The Supreme Court has frequently and fairly consistently held that the first amendment covers the executive branch and the judicial branch, not just the legislative (i.e., Congress). It has also held (although with considerable debate) that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment means that the free expression provisions of the first amendment (as well as other parts of the Bill of Rights) also apply to states, through the mechanism of incorporation.
And a thread on the interpretation versus the wording of a law would probably not get moved. But one musing about what’s going to happen with a website will.
Had a full-fledged battle over free speech and the First Amendment erupted, I might have left it alone. I did seriously consider IMHO as its next destination, but the comments were much more along the lines of “would it be cooL?” or “would it be workable?” with no serious dissension among the posters.
As noted, however, the vast majority of posts were pretty light without even expressions of strong opinions and even when you posted again you made no serious effort to engage anyone in debate. (In fact, you noted that courts would tend to favor the actions of Mods, and here you are protesting a Mod’s action. )
Good grief. There was a specific constitutional issue raised in the OP. There were guesses made about how it’d be settled, and many of those guesses were supported by references to existing law, but nobody appeared to have a definitive answer.
Yes, there was joking; yes, more than half the posts were jokes. But the posts that weren’t jokes were more substantive.
Tom, the thing is, when I’m unsure about an issue, I tend to post in reticent, polite terms, with my bets hedged. I want to hear sides of an issue, especially when I don’t know much about it myself. Post 12 was my expression of uncertainty, sketching out what I could see as the opposing sides. It wasn’t a light, “hey, any opinion is cool, man” post. I very rarely start GD threads (this is probably my first one in a year), and when I do, it’s generally for this reason, that I’m interested in hearing different sides of an issue.
The discussion appeared to be going just fine where it was. I really don’t see what purpose is served by moving it; overall, I wish you’d give more weight to posters’ intent in where they place threads. You often seem to me to be peremptory in your modding, with little weight given to respecting the discussions.
QUIT OPRESING MY FREDOM OF SPEACH!!!1! I HAVE FIST AMENDMANT RIGTHS YOU NO!!!
I was under the impression that there were frequent cases ruling that the 14th amendment extended the Bill of Rights to state governments, but what other cases beyond the Pentagon Papers one explicitly rule that it applies to the executive?
Regardless, it’s still a stupid point, because no one would be legislating anything. There would be no laws passed just for this. Telling people that if they want to participate in this particular discussion forum, be it online or in-person, is not a violation of the first amendment. I can’t walk into the monthly open-house meeting with the mayor my town has and start spewing profanity, but that doesn’t mean the city of Santa Fe is violating my constitutional rights. Increase that by having a written contract upon which you must click “I agree to these terms,” and there’s no argument that’s not idiotic.
Again, Ninjachick, ain’t it a damn shame this got moved? You’re being a jackass here, and it’s the pit so I don’t mind telling you that–but if it were in GD, I’d school you instead. It’s awful to see a college education so wasted.
I read the OP right after it was posted. It didn’t seem like a debate to me. I think you know that it really wasn’t; you’ve been involved in enough real debates to know the difference. Seemed like an understandable move to me.
I’m very glad that Tom moved that thread. I don’t go into GD very often. But when I do, that’s the kind of thread that makes me wonder what people are debating there. I don’t understand what the topic of the debate is nor what side the OP is taking. Then I just see a bunch of unfocused responses. The few times I’ve been there, a few threads I’ve seen look like IMHO threads and I wonder why some threads are in IMHO and others are in GD. Maybe if threads that look like IMHO are moved to IMHO (or MPSIMS), then GD might look more like a debate forum.
)