id
was set in the arguments array for the "side panel" sidebar. Defaulting to "sidebar-1". Manually set the id
to "sidebar-1" to silence this notice and keep existing sidebar content. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 4.2.0.) in /home/netscrib/public_html/civilwarcavalry/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4239id
was set in the arguments array for the "footer" sidebar. Defaulting to "sidebar-2". Manually set the id
to "sidebar-2" to silence this notice and keep existing sidebar content. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 4.2.0.) in /home/netscrib/public_html/civilwarcavalry/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4239That poster was blocked because she refused to obey the rules. It had nothing to do with censorship.
I have exactly three rules for commenting on this blog:
1. No made-up names and no anonymous comments.
2. Be respectful and polite.
3. I don’t permit people–and especially people I don’t know–to insult me on my own website that I pay for.
This particular individual–whom I do not know–gleefully violated two of the three rules and told me that she would continue to disregard the rules. Further, she said that I should feel free to ban her. Having read enough of her posts on other forums, I knew that she would, indeed, continue to disregard the rules. That’s why her comment was deleted and why she was banned.
And, while I respect your view, this is not a democracy. It’s a benevolent dictatorship. I am the benevolent despot. And, because I pay for this site, I get to make the rules. There are only three rules, and they are simple enough. My decisions regarding who and what violates the rules are final, not subject to discussion, and there certainly is no right of appeal. If you don’t like that, I regret that, but it is most assuredly not going to change just because you don’t like it.
Eric
]]>2. While I only “found” this website today (June 10, 2012) I was surprised to see that one commenter was blocked. Certainly the website owner has the right to do so, but it is important to acknowledge that such blocking is nothing less than censorship. From what I can see among the uniformity of opinion by commenters around here, my reflex reaction is that there is little tolerance for diversity of opinion, whereas I believe that censorship should only be used in extreme situations.
]]>I also love this (with apologies to Eric):
It’s not for you to decide who *I* should and should not confront, in what venue, on what subjects, at what time. It’s not for you to decide *any*thing for me, capisce?
How remarkable it is that Ms. Chastain can assert the very freedom that US Senator James Hammond of SC, in his speech of 1858, denied black men and women on the basis of their race, their “menial and inferior status,” and on the basis that they could not choose for themselves what was best for themselves due to both circumstances. In the same speech, he claimed that slaves were “hired” for life and therefore had better lives than the working poor in the North. Hired? They were bred, bought and sold as chattel property. They had no choice in the matter. They had none of the rights northern working men had: to be educated, to better themselves and their children, to travel, to live and work when and where one liked, to choose one’s associates, to marry as one chose, to live as one pleased, and most importantly, to exercise one’s franchise.
For so many of us, the Confederate flag, as much as it represents a phase in US history, also represents the insidious nature of Hammond’s viewpoint, a viewpoint common to any oppressive regime past or present in this world: “I know what is best for you and I will make the choices for you.” Those “choices” are typically made in the interest of the oppressor.
Frederick Douglass, anyone?
]]>Seriously… do you really want to know why the Confederate government was entirely dysfunctional except for Jefferson Davis? Just go look at the modern neo-Confederacy. Want to know how anyone could believe secession was a good, necessary idea for poor dirt farmers who didn’t own even a single slave? Go look at the modern neo-Confederacy. Etc, etc, etc.
]]>The fact is that the Flaggers, the strifent leadership of the SCV, and the online cadre of Confederate heritage supporters are a small group that is not really representative of the rank-and-file membership as a whole. They’re loud, but increasingly shrill, and are mostly playing to each other as an audience, looking to establish their unreconstructed bonafides to each other, rather than making a sincere effort to reach out to the general public. It’s a closed loop they’re operating in, and every stunt like that isolates them a little farther outside the mainstream of public discussion.
]]>The beauty of this website is that I pay for it. That means that I get the privilege of making the rules. There aren’t many rules, but I expect their adherence. This is not a democracy. I am the sole arbiter of those rules, and there is no right of appeal.
We have only a few rules here:
1. Be cordial at all times.
2. No anonymous comments, and no comments left under stupid made-up names.
3. No insulting me on my own web site.
That’s it. Those are the rules. Ms. Chastain violated two of the three, so I accepted her invitation to ban her IP address. She’s history. We won’t see her here again. And good riddance, I might add….
]]>Dennis
]]>Dennis
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