The END of Hate Speech, subtle or otherwise, on ATS

After heavy participation in this thread and the confusion that seems to surround it, I just have one question to ask:

1. Can you present your point of view, your opinion on a topic without:

* Hate
* Nastiness
* Name calling
* Dedregation
* Inflammatory rhetoric
* Insults
* Disgusting generalizations about
*** Ethnic Groups
*** Religions
*** Gender
*** Education
*** Medicine
*** Alien Lifeforms
*** Healthcare systems in the world
*** Education systems in the world

If you can't, then this might not be the best place for you,

Originally posted by BlueRaja
reply to post by magicmushroom

 

Rules have nothing to do with subjugating the masses. They are to prevent anarchy. Your free speach rights on a privately owned site are whatever the owners want. If you agree to those terms when joining, then you need to abide by them.

Yeah I can't argue with you on this one blue, but the issue I see that keeps coming up is just what does it mean to keep in compliance. Like people who when breaking rules, go too far, rules too can go too far.

I mean this forum enjoys a lot of success but I have never seen any forum that gets this successful not forget how they got that way and start talking about "zero tolerance" for issues when they ain't the only game in town themselves. Many I have said such comments have been so far into the clouds of their own success, say "Don't let the door slam" and invariably that same pride comes before a fall.

I would hope that isn't the case here and while I have every intention to keep in line, I have seen you too go waaaay over the line and I doubt at that moment a zero tolerance being thrown in your face wouldn't be met with your own version of slamming that door behind you in the heat of the moment. You ever had a troll on your neck? How about a Mod that was trolling you? I don't care who you are, you are either going to feel ostracized and get so sick of it or you are goign to make posts so meek they even make YOU sick reading them.

Originally posted by skeptic1
After heavy participation in this thread and the confusion that seems to surround it, I just have one question to ask:

1. Can you present your point of view, your opinion on a topic without:

* Hate
* Nastiness
* Name calling
* Dedregation
* Inflammatory rhetoric
* Insults
* Disgusting generalizations about
*** Ethnic Groups
*** Religions
*** Gender
*** Education
*** Medicine
*** Alien Lifeforms
*** Healthcare systems in the world
*** Education systems in the world

If you can't, then this might not be the best place for you,

If you are like most of us, and I am being reticent here when I say this, but I would say to you that we will miss you.

If anyone in a zero tolerance forum were to honestly answer that, and do as you suggest, this place would be a ghost town

reply to post by Aermacchi


If that is true, then I feel sad for the people who can't see beyond their prejudices. Important, critical debates and discussions don't need to be sullied by the actions of a few who want to spew hate for hate's sake,

Most of us aren't like that. We have all been in heated topics that managed to stay well above the lowest common denomonater. I just don't see why this small group who are fighting this so hard just can't either tone down the hateful rhetoric or find another forum to frequent.

Originally posted by deccal

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by deccal

We're in violent agreement.

But I don't know why we need to discuss the nuances of the term "free speech" when my point was...it doesn't apply here. At that point the debate on what "free speech" means is pretty much moot.

[edit on 2-6-2009 by Valhall]

You wrote: You post at the discretion of the ownership

I wanted to say, that it is not only about ATS, but abusing the right of free speech is a generaly issue.
Actually, discussing the nuances of free speech is greatly important and emergent for the world right now. But this is not the topic here

Yeah and like Val said IT IS MOOT! but you just HAD to say it anyway and it is THIS kind of passive aggressive "stuff" that If I didn't know better i would say Val would be thinking "Oh My God dude GrrrrrRRRrr does a house have to fall on your head, SHE GETS IT!

You using that disclaimer at the end is even more irritating because in the same voice you get that last word in, you admit to knowing it is NOT the topic, but that doesn't stop you from making the comment anyway even after she had established it is MOOT.

This is the same kind of area where for instance holocaust deniers in my opinion are topics involving those who know and accept history and those who want to revise it. The internet has been used in this way and it has had a very damaging effect on many. I see topics like this just ASKING for it and do my best to avoid em, I know my limitations and I would be a bull in a china shop arguing with someone like that.

Originally posted by skeptic1
reply to post by Aermacchi

 

If that is true, then I feel sad for the people who can't see beyond their prejudices. Important, critical debates and discussions don't need to be sullied by the actions of a few who want to spew hate for hate's sake,

Most of us aren't like that. We have all been in heated topics that managed to stay well above the lowest common denomonater. I just don't see why this small group who are fighting this so hard just can't either tone down the hateful rhetoric or find another forum to frequent.

Most of who aren't like that ? If you have read this thread, I don't care what you think is hate when I don't think I hate anyone but I sure get accused of it everytime I don't agree with same sex marriage or Obama etc and if it means I have to seek the approval of those with such erroneously established sensitivities, ya know what, they can kick me out. Ill never know I am being hatefull and i have never met anyone that thought they were either.

That is my point skeptic, and yeah i can speak like Star Trecks Data or Mr Spock or flower my phrases with semantics but you know, I will just call it on them as it is just as beligerant when someone just has to mention that I may need some remedial reading classes etc. Hey don't sugar coat it, just say it like you mean it and call me an idiot.

Rules make those who cannot obey them find more devious ways to break them and what does ATS do? They bring the hammer down with a ZERO tolerance on what I have thought was a slippery slope in the outside world as it will be here. The advent of what is commonly referred to as "hate Speech" may be a threat to free speech and even thought itself but it is for the same reasons it will be here and your idea that humans all boil at the same degree is naive in my experience.

The criteria you gave in that post and your belief it is so academic is an opinion you have and as fond of our opinions as we all are, each one of those items listed has their own conundrum of sub categories I can guarantee you could be argued by others.

This is why courts do not like hearsay, or speculation and laws are so often designed as black and white ad why it is the punishment they are wise enough to understand that is given on a case by case basis when such mitigating circumstances for gray areas exist.

Zero tolerance is just asking for the very confusion we have seen already

reply to post by skeptic1


That pretty much sums up the situation

I don't know what's so hard to understand about that.

ATS house, ATS rules and be nice while you're about your business

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

There is a fine and important line to understand -- where offending people meets being offensive to people.
.

Ok, I don't know how I missed this but THIS I know, I think in our heart of hearts we ALL know when we get to here.

It is the temptations in that place that takes discipline. My only concern and it isn't a big one as i have never seen a Mod here NOT know when someone wasn't crying wolf asking off topic questions and as soon as you answer they have a pet peave all of a sudden for being off topic and you get accused of going off topic or whatever the wolf species it happens to be by those crying about it. As many times as i have fallen for this trap, I have never seen any mods not see it for what it is and either ignore the alerts or remove BOTH the off topic post AND the one setting it up with the off topic question. THAT I was impresssed with even while it cost me

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by skeptic1

 

That pretty much sums up the situation

I don't know what's so hard to understand about that.

ATS house, ATS rules

and be nice while you're about your business

Oh it isn't that it's hard to understand budski, it is just hard to follow and I can pull up so many of your posts that bait, instigate then back off like a victim of the very attacks your posts incite and Ill be more than happy to dig em up. It is why I have heard many stay away from your threads including myself. They are just too not worth the risk getting banned over.

You dish it but can't take it and, I may be mistaken but I'd say you have a some good friends on here with the rank to make sure you have the last word because we never hear from them again. I assume they are post banned when in my opinion, well you don't even want to know my opinion.



[edit on 6-2-2009 by Aermacchi]

reply to post by Aermacchi

I'm just another member, with no rank or priveledges.

If you have a problem with any post of mine, hit the alert button - easy.

You seem determined to fight with someone - I suggest you don't bother; drama isn't really needed, in this thread or any other, and surely that's the point of the recent initiatives from the owners and staff.

Originally posted by mrknowitall

Originally posted by TheRandom1
While I agree with this action, I feel that you people will not enforce this concerning religion, well, maybe you will concerning religion, with the exception of Christianity as always, because this site is dedicated towards hatred of Christianity, I've NEVER seen a mod step in and tell people to quit hating on someone because they're a Christian.

Is this true?

I think it is, but I may not be the best one to judge impartially. I see the tenets of Christianity being stripped from our right to vote as if the separation of church and state has any say in that when it certainly does not. All the way to people jumping into threads just to make a derogatory comment about the evil of religion.

Homosexuals invariably assume anyone who disagrees with their political agenda is a fundamentalist in such a way that one would be the target of so many double standards or summarily give the "love love what would jesus say if he saw you act like that christian." While many fall for that Christian reputation those insisting on it, then have a much more meek and mild Christian to argue with while being twice as full of piss and vinegar themselves. I get so tired of hearing how someone was waterboarded into Christianity by Christians always "shoving their religion down there throats" I think to myself out of the once maybe twice a year the Jehovahs witnesses come knocking at my door, they have never insisted on forcing anything down my throat. I just answer the door Buck naked and say HEY Come on in!! and it is THEY who slam the door on me and run from my house.





naaah I'm just kidding,,







they don't really slam the door.

[edit on 6-2-2009 by Aermacchi]

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by Aermacchi

 

I'm just another member, with no rank or priveledges.

If you have a problem with any post of mine, hit the alert button - easy.

You seem determined to fight with someone - I suggest you don't bother; drama isn't really needed, in this thread or any other, and surely that's the point of the recent initiatives from the owners and staff.

You seem determined to fight with someone

Don't accuse me of what YOU think I am determined to do budski, it is this tactic I am speaking about when you add your little diggs here and there while you flatter the staff. My saying "you don't even want to know my opinion" that determined my disinterest in "figting with anyone" inspite of your attempts to bait me

[edit on 6-2-2009 by Aermacchi]

I, too, like other members of ATS have wondered when Staff and Forum moderators would step in and curtail the hate speech on this website. I applaud the move and support it wholeheartedly.

Why are you debating each other instead of discussing - and inwardly digesting the topic of the thread here?

No more bickering please. Its off topic, unwarranted and undermines the seriousness of the message that is supposed to be getting across here.

First and only warning.

Totally agree, well said and all the more this site will now be on the top of my chart. We should promote brotherhood and betterment of mankind and to grow our overall consciousness.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Zionism could be an evil conspiracy of the worst kind.

This is not something that would draw our attention as falling within the topic of this thread.

Stating your intolerance for the race of people who initiated Zionism is offensive.

Stating your intolerance of the goals of Zionism will offend some, but is not offensive.

If someone calls me an anti Semite or a group of people anti Semitic is that "hate speech"? After all that connotes NAZI, Jew Hater, stupid, illiterate, philistine, and someone of evil character who approves of the mass slaughter of a religious/ethnic group.

That sounds pretty hateful to me! Will that "hate speech" be enforced as well?

This term is meant to be threatening and meant to stifle discussions of legitimate topics. This is well known.

What I would like to know Skeptic Overlord, in your opinion, is the term anti Semite hate speech? Please don't give me the Dictionary definition of anti Semite. The word has changed and now connotes the most heinous crime a human may be accused. Supporting the mass murder of a religious/ethnic group. What is an equivalent for that type of subtle speech...fascist murderer? I am sure there are plenty, eugenicist, extermination of subhumans, genocidal maniac. Nice ways to make hateful accusations. Could you please answer. I would like Springer to answer as well if possible. Thanks!

I think that this is a simple issue. Always be considerate of others, even if you are critical.
I mean, I could think of 100 things to say right now about (insert whatever generalization you can think of) that would clearly define hate speech, or I could just debate the issues on the merits I understand. If I'm wrong, I should behave like an adult and own up to it and drop it, never to be brought up again. On the other hand, I can stick to my reasoning without emotion and get my point across without being hateful at all. If my points are valid, only the haters will respond to the contrary.

This is nothing more than a plea to be courteous, and I love it. We need more of it.

reply to post by Leo Strauss


To illustrate my above comment in response to your's, I have NEVER been claimed to be an anti-semite although I have been HIGHLY critical of Israeli Government. The reason is because I leave emotion for the behavior of the group out of it and focus on the actions of the people at the time.
Maybe it is just that people don't understand what I write, as I'm sloppy, but I think that if you point out your objections while being aware enough of your words not to sound like a bigot, you'll be alright.

reply to post by Springer


You are 100% correct in banning hate speech. Besides the fact that it debases the web-site, it brings corrosive energy to whomever looks upon it. Know that those who speak hate will be brought down by it. Know that whatever a person thinks and says will boomerang back upon them with brutal force. As we approach alignment with the Galactic Core, this will be even more true than ever.

Your courage and correct stance is to be commended. Support those who look for truth through the eyes of compassion and love, for those eyes will find truth most quickly. Support the interaction of people who really want an exchange of ideas. There are millions of us out there....

Don't need much input from me, Springer. Your post pretty much says it all. Good job