I'm also not too keen on flag burning and kiddie porn. How about you?
Is my failure to support those "First Amendment expressions" ignoble as well?
Kiddie Porn is a different story, because the civil rights of the child are being violated when it is produced.
Flag burning? As far as I'm concerned, although I would never burn a flag, yes - your failure to support peoples right to do it is ignoble. I consider it testimony to
the strength of our nation that we can allow dissidents to burn our flag, while still remaining fiercely patriotic. I realize that this is one of free speech's most sensitive
issues, because people have died for the flag and what it represents. Accordingly, I am more sympathetic to those who disagree with the civil libertarians view on
flag burning than most other stances.
The trouble with people like you, who are complicit in the hands of censors, is that you benefit from a society with freedoms without realizing that it is an unending
battle to retain these freedoms.
Pluvia was rude, but he's basically being persecuted because he was bearish on a stock. If the online investment community does not rally behind him, it makes itself
vulnerable that this scenario could repeat itself, and there's no telling whether the next bear to get attacked will be rude at all. Once a precedent is set, it becomes
easier and easier to infringe on others civil rights.
Who will lose if this is allowed to happen? We all will, because our ability to become better informed as investors through our open (and sometimes heated)
dialogue will be compromised. I am competent enough to sort through bullish and bearish perspectives, and take each with a grain of salt. I am intelligent enough to
know that most posters have an ulterior motive to their postings, either holding a long or short position in a stock. I am able to weigh these factors in my mind as I
use investor discussions to better inform me about my investments. I want to hear all the arguments about stocks that I'm holding or considering buying into, bull or
bear. I think those that would silence the bears are terribly foolhardy in the long term.
I think our ability to benefit from forums like SI is beginning to be jeopardized and will be further attacked as SI gains influence in the digital age. It is essential that
we fight to keep it a free and open forum right now, that it may remain so in the future. You might think I'm being overly dramatic, but I in turn feel that you're being
overly naive. |
