Why was this post modded?

[Max_S]

@UltraVires

It did. Posters were stating that Jan 6 was an insurrection because it targeted Congress. I asked what about a president? I can’t fathom that it is a hijack of the thread. It was an attempt to come up with a meaningful definition of insurrection.

Almost every thread has a hijack under this new standard that seems to only apply to me. I have been here 15 years and have never seen such a thing moderated. I dont even know what the rule is.

Rule here, emphesis mine.

@Jonathan_Chance

Hijacks. This is, perhaps, the single largest and most important change to the rules in Great Debates and Politics and Elections made in 2020. Staying on topic is a strong goal of Great Debates and Politics and Elections moving forward. Threads exist for a reason. Presumably, the original poster wants to discuss a specific topic. Posts which pull the thread away from that topic are hijacks. Some of these are inadvertent, some are not. Posts that seem intended to steer a discussion away from the original topic may be sanctioned. Hijacks may be, but are not limited to, posts that lead away from a topic, endless questioning, repeatedly asking the same or similar questions once they’ve been answered, and other maneuvers. Whether or not such is occurring is at the sole discretion of the moderation staff and may lead to official sanction.

As I recall the late Mr. Chance had envisioned a Great Debates forum with very, very focused topics. The topic in question is actually about whether section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the office of president. To debate what is or is not an insurrection is, in my opinion (and Babale’s), a hijack.

A hijack that began not with post #34, but really with post #18.

Your first post in the thread, #3, was on-topic. It would be hard to go off-topic with the OP sitting right there in front of you. But I’ve bolded the part which invites a hijack. In your better judgement you didn’t “go down the rabbit hole”. Yet.

@UltraVires

I agree. I think it is pretty clear that it applies to a presidential candidate. The trick will be who determines whether a person “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” A judge? Is a conviction required?

Which brings us to post #18. This is the specific paragraph where the hijack began:

@UltraVires

What is dangerous, IMHO, is attempting to apply this to January 6. Let’s say that I punch my mailman because he keeps bringing me bills. An argument could be made that I obstructed a constitutional function and that violence against mail carriers undermine our system of government and thus I gave “aid and comfort” to those who are actively trying to overthrow the government. Any act, large or small, could come under this prohibition, and under this lawsuit, could be decided by a single partisan judge. I can’t believe that is proper.

You decided to address the question of whether Jan 6 qualifies as insurrection. This is not a debate the OP proposed to have. It is not a debate the person you quoted in post #18 (also the OP) had brought up. It was a hijack plain and clear.

There was, however one other member who brought up the question of what constitutes insurrection.
@Exapno_Mapcase raised the issue in his post #4, dedicating most of that post to it. Judging by the timestamp you ninja’d him with #3. The differences between you and Mr. Mapcase is

a) respondants ignored the off-topic parts of his post until DrDeth came along in #23 (after you revived the topic),
b) he only made 6 posts (2 on-topic) compared to your 17 (4 1/2 on-topic),
c) perhaps most importantly, the thread died down on Friday and you revived it specifically to further your hijack.

Right here, you’re kind of sad that the thread died because people weren’t following your hijack. So, bump! and it’s back on the track.

@UltraVires

I’m kind of sad that this thread seems to have died, but if someone gave me the black robes, I would rule that there must be objective extrinsic evidence of a rebellion or insurrection such as (after the civil war) signing a surrender or parole documents or a valid conviction of a crime which had rebellion or insurrection as an element of the offense.

But wait, that’s not all! You then hijack your own hijack:

@UltraVires

But we have had a lot of threads about January 6, and I think the topic is more interesting if it is kept general. As a kid, I remember a teacher’s strike and a special session of the legislature was called to deal with it. The demonstrators walked onto the floor of the legislature while they were in session. Insurrection?

First you hijack the thread to discuss whether Jan 6 is insurrection. Now you’re hijacking your hijack to ask whether a teachers demonstration is insurrection. And in the blink of an eye, you’re asking if it was insurrection when JFK was shot.

@UltraVires

Was Lee Harvey Oswald guilty of insurrection for shooting JFK?

ekedolphin distinguishes your examples from Jan 6 by arguing that people in that event wanted to take down an entire branch of government. To which you argue that JFK is an entire branch of government.

@UltraVires

Kennedy was an entire branch of the federal government.

Which you know is a controversial thing to say. So here you are inviting a hijack to your hijack of a dead/dying topic that you hijacked. And that’s where you finally got warned.

I rest my case.

~Max