"Democracy as a concept is great. But without (some) self-restraint and discipline, it goes out of control. There is some sort of moderation needed in any society. America is a democracy well executed."
No, these united states are a "constitutional republic." If you have not encountered this definition, the Web has ample resources. The difference is between mob rule, vote by majority, and a system where a small set of fundamental principles (like the rules in a cellular automaton) are not changeable by mob rule.
Granted, "the" United States, as a government, is moving toward "democracy." Should we allow smoking? Take a vote. Should we allow hate speech? Do an opinion poll. Should we arrest people for praying? Have CNN do a phone survey.
"Regarding 'moderation' : Feelings are important in the society. You have to restrain people who steamroll over other peoples feelings and they needs to be moderated (and even in our democratic system we have rules to protect people from being steamrolled)."
No, we do NOT have rules in these united states about protecting people from having their feelings hurt.
What part of "Congress shall make no law..." in the First Amendment do you not understand?
Did you not absorb this basic point at an early enough age?
"Having said that, I did vote (very strongly) against Pauls ban. This is because, this thread is an investment thread. IMO, Paul adds enormous investment value to a thread, who (with a few exception) is completely disconnected from real life, IMO. If AMD Mod thread was real life, I would strongly speak out against Paul. But, then again Paul (I hear) has a very different personality in real life."
Not so different...trust me.
But the real issue is that "moderated forums" (fora, if you prefer) usually devolve very quickly into the private fiefdoms of those who allegedly moderate. I have seen this in many fora over many years, and I now make it a point to avoid private mailing lists for this very reason: the moderators decide it is part of their control freak duty to send "nannygrams" out to the children to subtly or not so subtly steer them in some "nice" direction. It usually creates even more strife, as the natural mechanisms for detailing with unpleasant exchanges are skewed by the threat of force. In particular, people begin to "test the limits" of what Nanny will allow.
Usually the moderators go through a phase of being very active in the "nudging" or "guiding" of their children, then the volume of complaints and "I'm gonna _tell_!" posts swamps them and they take a breather. This is when the stoolies, the trusties in the camp, take over and say "When Manni gets back, you're gonna be in real trouble!"
With luck, the moderator just leaves and the group turns into a de facto unmoderated group. (Judging by the huge volume of off-topic posts in the Moderated AMD thread, I'd say that point has been reached.)
In the Maniban-controlled region of SI, the Mullah Ahmadi exercises biased interpretations of his Koran. For example, he declares that further discussion of 911 events is "off topic" and will be punished...then a few days later he writes a vicious screed attacking Israel and praising the Islamic Democratic People's Paradise of Iran.
Now the Maniban-controlled region of the Democratic People's Paradise is faced with boredom, as they all pat themselves on the back about how AMD is triumphing over the Evil Doers in Satan Clara. So these bored Maniban have come to the _un_moderated Intel thread to stir the sh....whoops, to avoid a ban I'd better use the SI-approved euphemism, "sh*t."
Don't get me wrong, it is the property right of Infospace, and thus down to Go2Net (or whatever it is now called), and thus down to Silicon Investor, to establish whatever policies they wish to establish. Same as it is Intel's property right to choose what it publishes in Intelleads, its internal news monthly. Same as it is AMD's property right, and so on.
Mullah Ahmadi should instruct his fedayeen that Jerry is not worth financially dying for. "I bought more stock in the One Chosen Company when it dropped below $30! This is a great deal."
Funny, the stock price of AMD is roughly what it was 20 years ago. Jerry is laughing at you. He sold some of his shares to SpryGuy.
(By the way, the SI admin, I think his name was "Jeff," said that "racism" is not acceptable and that I would be banned permanently if I made a racial reference. For the record, I accept that Ahmadi is a Caucasian just like me...the Caucasus mountains are in fact near Iran, and the word "Iran" is of course the same as the word "Aryan." Cf. any etymological dictionary. So my comments are not racist. )
--Tim May |
