Sunday, November 01, 2009

Thoughts on Public Discussion

A Less Than Satisfactory Experience on the Web

As promised to someone in the media, here is an item on the bane of censorship on civil discourse in the media.

It doesn’t matter what form of media we’re talking about here. What matters is that the civil expression of honestly held and supportable positions on matters is probably the most important part of maintaining a free society. And whenever said expression is suppressed because someone else doesn’t agree with it, it becomes a problem for all of us. Or I should say US.

I’ve encountered such ‘someone-elses’ in numerous places in my sojourn on this ball-of-dirt: in the military, in corporate America, on the web. Many places. And everywhere I’ve encountered them, their places seem to become echo-chambers unto their own philosophies, be it political, social, organizational and/or religious. And it has been that way down through the proverbial ages. The classic example being the Roman Catholic church during the Reformation with its burning of ‘heretics’. Then there were the Puritans burning witches.

In the political venue, we have Lenin and Stalin killing those ‘kulaks’ who objected to their rule in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 30s. Or Mao in Communist China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Such behavior on the part of organizations with the power to do such has never been about seeking the truth of a matter. It has always been about maintaining power of one form or another.

Of late in America, I’ve seen this sort of behavior on the web. On various blog-sites where politics are involved. Whenever someone is making articulate and effective arguments against a particular blog-site operator’s position, many such operators, who feel their position is threatened, decide it is better that that person doesn’t ‘exist’ on their site. They therefore deny the individual who disagrees the ability to post comments there. They may even go so far as to delete any comments that individual has posted.

Oddly enough, more often then not, such blog sites are operated by people who think they are ‘liberal’. However, their actions speak volumes as opposed to their words.

This sort of action happened recently to me in a locally operated ‘blog’ of some importance. It happened when I was ‘on-topic’, and civil. I’m not exactly certain why it happened, but there it is. Or rather, there it—my comment—isn’t, anymore. Maybe I was being too ‘round-about’ in my discussion with the person known as ‘artie’. I tend to be that way at times. Why? Because sometimes you have to lead people to the truth. Simply telling them the truth doesn’t always work. As Benjamin Franklin put it….

Tell me something and I forget it. Teach me something and I remember it. Involve me in something and I LEARN it.

So I was trying to teach artie something based on my personal observations of the Vietnam War and the history of the United States after that event. I hoped to involve artie in the study of history. However, the blogmeister deemed my comments inappropriate to the topical thread of the Afghanistan War.

My personal opinion on this matter is that the fight in Afghanistan shows so many parallels with the way America dealt with the Vietnam War that they cannot be denied.

As a military officer—albeit retired—I’m a student of history. And when I see a danger to US, I tend to speak out about it. And so I did on a thread on that locally operated ‘blog’ of some importance. I was attempting to lead artie and any others who observed to a better understanding of what was happening. The hope was that maybe they’d change their understanding.

However, my voice was cut off. And I have to wonder as to the implications of such a silencing of my opinion by the people who operate this locally operated ‘blog’ of some importance.

I will not identify this locally operated blog of some importance at this time. I hope that this missive may affect a change in its management policies.

However, if they continue to manifest this behavior in the future, I will certainly begin the naming of names.

On September 11th, 2001, some 3000 American and other nationals were murdered by an organization bent on overthrowing our Constitution, an ideal I swore to uphold and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This is a matter of considerable importance to me. And I would hope to every American. But, if the discussion is cut off in an arbitrary manner, how can we hope to come to the best possible solution to the war at hand?

History repeats itself. That’s one of the problems with history.—Some Wag

And considering the lousy way in which our vaunted America public education system teaches history…..we may well be in deep trouble if we cannot teach each other via other venues.

 

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