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To: dennisw
I stated fact. This is the way it is over there at LF. It's a free country and this is their "thing". That so called libertarian forum is 50% libertarian and 50% Jew/Israel bashing. This is fact.

I'm not sure I'd disagree with you.

(and some of us aren't exactly thrilled with that)

But the fact is, the website is established on libertarian principles, and therefore makes a sincere effort not to censor posts at all, and rarely if ever for content which does not pass with the approval of thought filters.

Such content is rebutted rather than sanitized. Yeah, it takes a little more effort to rebutt rather than hide, but the site's founder has enough confidence in the value of liberty, to know that putrid and unsound ideas are easily rebutted (and rebutted soundly) by anyone willing to put forth the effort.

If ideas are sound, they withstand challenges, and are upheld on their own merits. They don't need a panel of folks to protect people from themselves.

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:222

130 posted on 06/25/2002 6:35:51 AM PDT by OWK
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To: OWK
putrid and unsound ideas are easily rebutted (and rebutted soundly) by anyone willing to put forth the effort.

Certainly. But what if the forum is a private one (meaning that there is no coercion)? You join voluntarily, and in joining agree that the purpose of that association is so-and-so.

In that case, it is not censorship to yank comments and boot people. And, though unsound ideas are easily rebutted, it may not be the original purpose of that forum to rebut the particular unsound ideas spread by your particular visitors. Just because you can rebut them doesn't mean you should spend your time doing it.

The forum may be political in its purpose, but if it is private, it is apolitical in structure, and therefore libertarian principles would allow as much control over speech as the owners deem appropriate to attain the purpose.

So perhaps you actually ceded the agenda of your forum to others, in a misapplication of libertarian political principles of free speech to a private, purpose-driven discussion.

155 posted on 06/25/2002 6:51:04 AM PDT by Taliesan
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To: OWK
Thanks OWK. It's a free country with many forums on the internet. If many freepers and ex-freepers prefer LF then this is their business.

Any freeper who goes there today will see only a fraction of the anti/Jewish vituperation that was there just a few weeks ago when the Israel/Palestinian conflict was much hotter. Such as when the IDF moved into Jenin.

163 posted on 06/25/2002 6:56:58 AM PDT by dennisw
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