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The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 6th, 2018, 4:59 pm
by Dachshund
I note that my OP on the topic of repealing women's suffrage has been locked by Greta. In my opinion this decision was made predominantly because she because she knew full well that there was no prospect of the arguments I was in the process of setting down in support of my case being defeated ,and,being female she was not prepared to hear the truth about the tremendous damage that the women's right's movement has inflicted- and is continuing to inflict -on the Western societies. It is a classic example of politically correct censorship and I have to say that I am very disappointed to learn that this philosophy forum is not a place where the right to freedom of expression is respected.

Dachshund

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 6th, 2018, 8:39 pm
by Sy Borg
No, it was locked down because you repeatedly refused to read or address points made where you posted instead:
PUT UP OR SHUT UP
Seven posts in a row. If you think that visitors to philosophy forums want this kind of vacuous self indulgence, you are mistaken.

There is no freedom of expression anywhere. One is not even allowed to utter the term "climate change" in the White House today, which is almost Orwellian!

So there are always limits on expression, and when you become too self indulgent, threads will continue to be locked. If you stay focused then threads will stay open.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 8:24 am
by Steve3007
Many modern democratic societies are (at least in theory) structured so as to have a government (legislative and executive) whose business is to create laws, a judiciary, which is independent of the legislature and whose business is to decide whether or not the laws have been adhered to, and a citizenry whose business is to vote for the government and be judged by the judiciary.

This website has a sort of legislature (Scott - the guy who created the rules of the site) and a judiciary. But the citizens (posters) don't vote. They don't have a say about the laws. So, in a sense, it's a kind of dictatorship. If the posters/citizens did have a vote, I wonder whether they would substantially change them? If they did, it seems reasonable to assume that all posters should have one vote. Does anybody disagree? Does anybody think that only some posters should have a vote? If so, what would be the criteria for deciding whether a given poster has a vote?

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 4:31 pm
by Sy Borg
All forums, and all private enterprise for that matter, are basically autocratic, as is this one. In the light of this and the fact that Scott carries all risk and responsibility, the most reasonable option is that each member gets zero votes because customers are not shareholders :) Many are keen to point out their own rights but only other people's responsibilities.

Regulars hoping to have influence and proven to be responsible can offer their services as a mod. Alas, modding can be bruising at times and one excellent regular seems to have left the forum after a difficult period modding where he'd hoped to raise standards a little (with my full support). Alas, standards did not want to be raised and fought back vigorously enough for him to decide to do something else. Pity. A fine mind driven off by lesser ones.

I myself have wanted to quit modding about half a dozen times. It is especially difficult to moderate alt right people because they inherently have no respect for authority, and even less so for women in positions of authority, generally inspired by the antics of US's rebel-in-chief. Modding such people is like trying to control teenagers. I have experimented with numerous methods and found that cold ruthlessness is the only way to deal with such people - set the rules, make them clear, transgress too much, no fuss, just ejection.

Of course, then they claim bias and talk about "freedom of expression" and never once will they acknowledge that their own trolling and poor manners were the source of the issues. Generally, if a new member arrives with attitude and arrogance I will generally be quick to ban for transgressions because in my experience such people get worse with familiarity rather than better; they are akin to a dinner guest arriving at your home for the first time and telling everyone that they are fools.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 4:48 pm
by Alias
A forum is not a nation or a government. It's somebody's private property. If the homeowner has a no-shoes rule, you remove footwear, or you stay out. The rules are posted on the door: you enter with informed assent; you could freely choose the option of not entering. If you cannot or will not abide by house rules, you have the option of leaving; they have the option of ejecting you.
If you want a say in what happens inside or how the rules are made, you have a further option of earning a seat on the governing council.
If the council wants to hold a referendum on some specific issue or proposed change of protocol, they can do so.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 4:50 pm
by Alias
:lol: yeah, that! ^^^

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 4:55 pm
by Sy Borg
I added a little since your post (editing while you posted), Alias. Hopefully the above post still applies :)

Yes, it's just house rules. Imagine throwing a dinner party and giving the guests a vote as to how you run your household? :lol:

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 8:39 pm
by Steve3007
Yes I see your points about the reason why this is not a democracy. The difficulty for moderators here, I think, is interpreting the rules. After this case I had another look at them. As with most rules and laws, it's difficult to think of a way that they could be worded so as to be unambiguous enough to simply be taken literally. So they have to be used as broad guidelines, with common sense playing a large part (as they generally are). This gives those with these teenager-like attitudes plenty of scope to cry foul. It's interesting to me that judges, when dealing with the laws governing nations, face exactly the same problems. For example, we've seen it recently in the US with judges interpreting the US Constitution to rule that Trump's Muslim ban was unconstitutional. Interpreting something like the US Constitution in such a way as to minimize the accusations of political bias must be particularly difficult.

There are the same problems when trying to critique any passage of text that purports to make an argument supporting a point of view or opinion. In trying to do that here, I've usually found that the cold, logical, rational "you have said this and you are wrong for this reason" approach simply doesn't work for various reasons. Mostly because people rarely set out their position as an orderly evidence-based argument. They generally make assertions and express personal tastes. It's not possible to demonstrate to people that their personal tastes are wrong. It's only really possible to state that one doesn't share them.

As an exercise, before it was locked, I was starting to try this with the OP which proposed to revoke women's suffrage - breaking it into small parts and demonstrating why I disagreed with each part. I guess it was probably a waste of time though. The central flaws of the OP (correlation does not imply cause etc) had already been pointed out by Greta and others, and ignored.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 9:05 pm
by Sy Borg
Steve, if you are to engage in such an experiment again, by all means let me know and I will hold off. I'm a bit disappointed to have stood in the way of scientific inquiry! :)

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 10:13 pm
by Steve3007
Actually, I've just finished writing the OP for a new topic which attempts to approach the issue again by attempting to find the broader principles involved. I'm not sure how well it works, but I'll post it shortly.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 10:29 pm
by Sy Borg
Good luck Tuvok. Let me know as soon as possible how things are going. And give my regards to T'Pel :)

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 7th, 2018, 10:53 pm
by Steve3007
I had to google Tuvok and T'Pel to get that joke. Perhaps it's a hopeful sign that I'm not enough of a Trekkie to get it without doing so. Although, I suppose if you'd said Spock I would have got it.

Anyway, I've posted the topic now.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 8th, 2018, 3:54 am
by LuckyR
Dachshund wrote: January 6th, 2018, 4:59 pm I note that my OP on the topic of repealing women's suffrage has been locked by Greta. In my opinion this decision was made predominantly because she because she knew full well that there was no prospect of the arguments I was in the process of setting down in support of my case being defeated ,and,being female she was not prepared to hear the truth about the tremendous damage that the women's right's movement has inflicted- and is continuing to inflict -on the Western societies. It is a classic example of politically correct censorship and I have to say that I am very disappointed to learn that this philosophy forum is not a place where the right to freedom of expression is respected.

Dachshund
Some advice: whining doesn't help one's case when you are trying to project masculinity.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 8th, 2018, 7:01 am
by Sy Borg
Steve3007 wrote: January 7th, 2018, 10:53 pm I had to google Tuvok and T'Pel to get that joke. Perhaps it's a hopeful sign that I'm not enough of a Trekkie to get it without doing so.
Pray that you never reach that point, Steven.

Lucky, now that you mention it, those with extreme views will naturally tend towards whining - because they are on the losing side of history and that will largely continue to be the case. Every society where extremists have achieved power has come to grief. As extremism lifts, so does prosperity and happiness (aside from malcontent extremists who see the bulk of people as ignorant puppets as they suffer from their self-inflicted injuries).

In healthy societies, however, most people will be moderate in their views, and literally more philosophical about life than miserable extremists.

Re: The right to freedom of expression.

Posted: January 8th, 2018, 9:52 pm
by Maldon007
Their house, their rules, dude. And yeah, this my first time on this forum in a loooong time, and one of the first things I see is, PUT UP OR SHUT UP!... And most of the quoted posts didn't even seem right for the demand. Like, I might expect that to a hard to believe claim or a quoted stat that seems off... Anyway, mellow out and make reasoned arguments, and you will probably get better results.