When was D.Hearne banned?

zookeeper said:

I suspect he's just getting a "time out". Happens all the time on these forums. I just read the posts that got his hand slapped and while I refuse to pick a side, I will say that lots of forums don't allow political discussions just for that reason.

Click to expand...

Ok. I have thought long and hard about this and here is my response.

When a site is dedicated to cars, one expects the content to pretty much be confined to cars. If you want to discuss off topic themes, there are other sites for that. But when you open a sub-forum called the "Fight Club" that is named after a book and movie in which guys willingly got into the ring to pound the crap out of each other, you have implicitly condoned just about anything that goes on there short of neo-Nazi or KKK sloganeering. the Fight Club was not a forum for Fops and Dandies to go and discuss the best lotions to use after waxing their chest and facial hair. Rather, people would voluntarily go to that forum to brawl. Given the nature of that forum, nobody should ever have been heard to complain that his feelings got hurt while in the Fight Club. I think that it is wrong that a long-time, technically knowledgable member would be banned for what transpired there. For the site to encourage bare-knuckle brawling by opening the Fight Club and then banning somebody for his conduct there is the kind of hypocrisy demonstrated by Captain Renault when he shut down Rick's Bar in the movie Casablanca, declaring "I'm shocked! Shocked, to find out gambling goes on here!", just as a croupier hands him money and chips and says "Your winnings sir", to which a delighted Captain Renault replies "Oh, thank you very much."

I would like the moderators here to consider that the action taken against D.Hearne is not without historical precedent. Early on Deng Xiaoping's tenure as the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, ordinary chinese were encouraged to place anonymous complaints about corruption and the ills of China on a wall in Beijing that later became known as the Democracy Wall. The party was supposed to read the anonymous complaints and take remedial action where warranted. The only thing was that the party had no intention of remedying anything. The whole thing was a rouse to identify counter-revolutionaries, malcontents, and Trotskyite bandits. The wall was under surveillance and the Chinese secret police would identify the posters and later grab them. Punishments for those identified for speaking their minds ranged from a strong reprimand to being sent re-education camps. The comparison I have drawn is apt and I hope a little thought provoking.

In closing, the fact that rbohm says that he is afraid to speak his mind because he is afraid of getting banned should pretty much tell you that heavy-handed moderating has had a chilling effect on this site where people are afraid to say something out of fear of retribution. Please consider that.

regards,

jerryS