shiva wrote:BlawBlaw wrote:shiva wrote:As I said on another thread on this subject, I'd be willing to bet that the learned judges will approach this fake problem with a certain ideological point of view and at the end of this costly exercise, all that will be accomplished is that they will codify the silencing of politically incorrect points of view.
Backhoe posted a link to a blog where they are discussing the Brett Kimberlaine story. I think it's worth having a look at it again within the context of this discussion we are having about FD. You can see it here:
http://theothermccain.com/2012/06/01/th ... periority/The title of the blog post is "Radicals Justify Their Evil by Invoking their Presumed Moral Authority".
In particular, this paragraph jumped out at me, the "accusations" referred to being "Islamaphobe and White Supremacist":
"Such
accusations, you see, are part of the belief system by which the far Left justifies its lawless radicalism: Because their enemies are all, in one way or another, guilty of political ThoughtCrimes (a category that the Left is always willing to expand and re-define as necessary), the Left need not be scrupulous as to the means by which it advances its goals.
If you buy into the premises of their argument, then the conclusion logically follows that any outcome other than the complete triumph of the Left — the extermination of all resistance — is unacceptable, and whatever foul, unjust and illegal actions are necessary to accomplish that triumph can be justified."
Now, here's my point? Why would we allow this presumption of moral authority by the left, become the deciding factor in what is considered allowable speech? Why are we buying into their premise that there is even such a thing as "allowable speech" when it comes to expression of political opinion and why on earth would we buy into the idea that judges (or anyone for that matter) can be the final arbiters of what that speech is?
The fact is, if someone wants to participate on a political discussion forum, they must first sign up, so in other words they are making quite a deliberate effort to be involved in the raucous and unpredictable world of opinion flinging. As I said in another post on this subject, why isn't the answer simply a disclaimer from the forum operators that says that you sign up and play at your own risk of hurt feelings?
I can't count how many times Red Green has accused me of being a member of the "Conservative Taliban". Should I run away crying and ask the state or lawyers to silence him and stop him from expressing his (ill informed) opinion of me? No! I'd rather argue with him and call him names in return. And, if either one of us crosses a line, we do so at the risk of being banned or held in low esteem by other forum members.
We must insist that this voluntary and self-regulating aspect of political forums should be respected and not even engage in this fake battle that these judges would like to deliberate on, especially when you factor in the mind-set and political inclinations of those very judges.
This is a common theme that has been identified by many conservative writers: the left consider themselves the good guys and consider themselves to engage in hypocrisy, pefidy, or any sort of underhanded tactics or lies to defeat the evil right-wingers.
However, there is a point to be raised in whether contract law can oust defamation law? At first blush, I don't think so, but the argument is that you know what you are getting into when two ideologues on opposite ends of the political spectrum voluntarily pick a fight on a forum that some third party is otherwise responsible for.
If Mark and Connie decided that part of the terms of use of FD was to submit all disputes to mandatory arbitration, with a privative clause, that might work, but everything - ultimately - is subject to a court review.
And did I mention that the arbitrator would be your choice of Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant?
Thanks very much for this response Blaw Blaw. It seems to me that if we can make the argument that having an environment where the cut and thrust of political debate is not constrained at the lowest sensitivities, is a good thing for democracy. Many of us, political animals though we may be, will abide by the maxim that one should not discuss politics and religion in polite company so the question becomes, where
can we discuss and debate these important matters?
There are three points I would like to make:
First, leftists are relentless propagandists. The best example is evolution of the word 'discrimination' which during my university age days meant the ability to choose wisely, as in discernment. Leftist propaganda changed the meaning of the term into something sinister; discrimination was uttered with a curled lip and sneer indicating that if you chose to employ an applicant based on qualifications, you were a sub-human because you thus failed to promote the member of a visible minority.
Second, leftists always appeal to emotions and feelings rather than to logic and reason - up to a point. The point is when a leftist suffers hurt feelings - then all bets are off and the alleged 'injury' must be redressed.
Third, IMHO there is nothing that Free Dominion could have or should have done or can do in future to avoid legal suits from leftists who are targeting the site deliberately and maliciously. Some have signalled their malice by joining the FD forums as members and leaving explosive posts as evidence for future actions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We cannot allow ourselves to be governed by malicious litigants bent on abusing due process to silence Free Dominion. We can fight back by supporting the Fourniers and Free Dominion and thus hold up the litigants as the malicious scoundrels they are, appearing before the court with dirty hands and minds, seeking redress for situations they have taken a direct hand in creating.
It is one thing for a person to discover that he has been libeled on an Internet blog, forum or chat site and to take action to correct the record. It is quite another for an active participant in public political discourse to suddenly decide he can set limits on an exchange of insults and look to our courts for a remedy.
The solution is to cast out malicious litigants who appear in our courts with a libel action to further a political agenda. We need a ‘clean hands’ test for the courts to apply to prevent Internet trolls from carrying flame wars from blogs and forums into our courts long before we get to the costs and resource waste of a jury trial.
We must avoid having the courts impose arbitrary limits on public political discourse that will affect millions of Internet users and site hosts to appease a very few malicious litigants.
