07-28-2020, 10:21 AM
(07-28-2020, 03:28 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-26-2020, 11:21 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Another poster and I asked that your previous incarnation be banned when it called for someone to commit suicide. I complained to the moderator about that, and suggested that you might not be in such trouble with me if you rescinded the offending post and apologized. Many times we post what we might regret later. I did not need protection: I thought that someone else might have needed some protection. Besides, I thought that a benign correction of your then-incarnation was apt and perhaps even beneficial to you. The cost of divesting oneself of a bad habit is usually well worth freedom from that bad habit.
There have been times when someone called attention to me that I had gone too far... and I backed down. I deleted or modified the post or apologized for what I had said. But I am going to hurt some feelings at times. I know that.
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... the problem isn't your disagreement with me; it is with your disagreement with statistical inferences that do not depend upon any personality. If it were Hillary Clinton down by ten points or so against a Republican challenger this time at this stage, then I would be hedging my personal life upon the near-certainty of a win by the Republican nominee for President. Politically I would be trying to rescue what I could, like vulnerable incumbents.
I didn't mean it literally and it was quite obvious at the time. You'd think an adult substitute teacher like yourself would be mature enough to figure that out. What made you think that I had to apologize to you and remove a post that wasn't directed at you or a person that I felt would take it literally and do it? Hint: What you actually did marked to beginning of the end of that forum? Personally, I don't think people like you should have the power but then again its your life that your placing on line not mine.
I have empathy and morals. I recognize that encouraging people to commit suicide is manslaughter if someone actually does it, and murder if one gives aid and assistance. For an analogy, suppose that someone posted a sexually-explicit post where such is unwelcome.
If you want to know where I get really ruthless -- try commercial spam here. At the worst someone once offered fake passports on this site. First, it is fraud; second, someone who uses a fake passport is likely to get into real trouble. No passport is better known than the US passport, and any deviation from a rigid norm in the passport shows that one is up to no good. Use one of those in China, and instead of getting to tour the Great Wall of China or the Forbidden City you will be walled up in a place that the Chinese have for people who do forbidden things. Chinese officials will assume that you are a criminal, and the US State Department will do nothing to help you. You could be a spy, a drug courier, or a human trafficker. American tourists are safe in China. American criminals are not.
The offending post was deleted and so was the thread. So was my warning.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
