Atomictumor

I believe in freedom of speech, both as a believer in basic rights as an American citizen and as a dirty liberal Bolshevik hippie. Every one of us, even the most spiteful, hateful son of a bitch has the right to his or her opinions, and a right to voice them in a public forum.

But atomictumor.com is not quite a public forum. Sure, it’s public, and sure, it’s a forum (when you people decide to say something.) But it’s privately owned(ish) and operated, thus making it and any content herein subject to our scrutiny and censorship.

But even considering that, I have a hard time rationalizing the censorship of any person who deigns to grace us with their presence on the ol’ ‘tumor. Without contrarian ideas, how would we be challenged in our own thinking? Without public discourse, open to a wide variety of people, how would we come to understand opposing viewpoints? The short answer is we wouldn’t.

But. But. There are times, aren’t there, when censorship is appropriate? Spam is an easy and obvious answer. What about comments or commenters who cannot seem to stay on topic? They may come into a thread and write one or two sentences about said topic, and then veer off into some random and distant idea of their own. Because, by God, Oak Ridge needs a senior center.

What about commenters who might be on topic, but their inane ramblings are so convoluted and hard to follow that you just can’t be sure? Should we let them use our webspace to propound upon their paranoid delusions? It can be entertaining, so sure, let them talk about the power of the time cube.

What about assholes? What about assholes? I’m not talking about some guy that comes in to makes a comment and does it in a snarky, rude way. I’m talking about people who are mean for mean’s sake. They resort to name calling and belittling instead of making any valid points. Why do they come? Probably because they have no friends and nothing better to do. And a small penis.

What about the willfully stupid? These are people who refuse to be enlightened. They ask a question when the answer is readily available to them. Then they ignore it in favor of asking more stupid questions and blaming other people for not providing the answers fast enough. Even though the answers are right there. Nothing pisses me off more than a willfully stupid person. They can’t be responsible for their own education and edification. They rely and insist on others spoon-feeding them knowledge. I have no time and no sympathy for these people. If you are unwilling to do a little fact checking on your own and to develop intelligent, fully-formed ideas, then I have no time for you. Bugger off.

So what about censorship?  Do the Ann Coulters and Fred Phelps of the world deserve their time on the soap box?  You’re damn right they do.  Do they deserve an audience?  Absolutely not.  In the case of these examples, and countless others like them, it isn’t by the grace of their unwavering fans that they maintain a place in the public eye.  It’s because people keep bitching about them and giving them an arena in which to spew their hate.

Will atomictumor.com censor again?  I’d like to think we won’t, but I know better than to make a blanket statement like that.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 11:40 am and is filed under Justice, Fearmongering, Rant, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.