As an unpopular person, the very suggestion offends me.

Nope. Doesn’t meet my criteria.

No. Those we disagree with often teach us the most. We may not agree with them, but we learn about human nature and are offered different points of view.

If the person is unpopular because of their personality, well everyone will just have to suck it up and deal with it. Intolerance isn’t a good reason for pushing people out.

Define “compelled”.

Using Fluther as an example, would “compelled” mean the moderators ban the odious individual’s account, or would the simple “anti-fan club’s” actions against the arsehole leading to them eventually leaving of their own free will count as “compelling”?

@Seek Setting the house on fire to get rid of a rat infestation certainly works, but it’s a rather pyrrhic victory. Of course, a fever works the same way: increase the body’s temperature to exploit a viral or bacterial infection’s weakness to heat and hope it doesn’t cook the brain before it kills the infection.

And I’m not sure that harassing a person into leaving through a scorched-earth strategy of burning down every thread in which the person participates could be counted as the person’s “free will.” It’s only a free choice in the sense that “your money or your life” is a free choice given to robbery victims. I think traditional shunning, in which the person is quietly frozen out of all social interaction and support would be a less coercive tactic.

If that were the case, I guess I would be the 1st on the gangplank being fed to Neptune.

That… didn’t answer my question at all.

Let’s try this again:

You ask if a person who is unpopular should be “removed” from the community.

Define “removed”, if you would be so very kind.

Personally, I’m a big fan of grinding the bastards into carbon. If you choose to be an asshole, you deserve to be treated accordingly. Silent protest has led to far too many well-greased squeaky wheels for my taste.

I’m asking you to define “removed.” Should a sufficiently unpopular person be removed, and, if so, how? Not that it’s our choice anyway. I recently posted a message offering to leave Fluther for at least a year if ten people clicked ‘like’ on the comment, and the posting was censored. I’m not interested in contributing my time to places where I’m not wanted, and I think most people feel likewise, but the Fluther ruling class apparently reserves banishment as their sole jurisdiction.

It is your question. You ask if they should be removed. I am asking you what you mean by that.

Why is this hard to figure out?

If you’re asking me to turn your question into my own, I like it when the trash takes itself out.

This is an awfully convoluted question about a simple concept. It’s called censorship and it’s used here in Fluther quite a bit. (ask me how I know).

Are you suggesting that, if there is a consensus among members, that they should have the power to tell the mods to ban someone? I’m not a big fan of censorship. I get modded when I loose my shit at something or someone. I also get modded when someone reads something INTO what I write that isn’t even there. We are highly censored on this site, actually. The OP can flag any answer they don’t like and the mods respond accordingly. I’m sure I would be in the top three waiting to be voted on.

Obvious trolls are banned. I think it would take some highly, repeated offensive language aimed personally at another Jelly for me to get behind banning someone that has been here for a long time and truly part of this ‘community’. I lose my temper. I don’t suffer adults to be utterly clueless and whiny. Who am I to judge? “There, but by the grace of the Mod’s, go I.”

@Hypocrisy_Central Yes, and Smash and I will follow you on that board in rapid succession… :-)

I have actually been asked to leave by another two days ago. Still chewing on it.

@olivier5 Want to write what you just privately wrote to me here in the thread? Pot calling kettle black.

I run a site. You don’t even have to be horrible for me to nuke you. You just have to be annoying enough where people I don’t think are annoying don’t log in because you are there. I recently went through this. One person that really didn’t do anything offense made things really horrible.

Seek, have you noticed the lack of a annoyance lately? That wasn’t by accident. That was just me being a dick and one person loses but six win.

@cazzie No idea what you’re talking about. I never told you to leave Fluther.

Edit: You are welcome to paste here anything i told you privately. I’ll stand by it without breaking a sweat. No dirty secrets here.

Telling me to not let the door hit me on the backside on my way out wasn’t inviting me to leave?

I’m sorry you have taken such a dislike of me over comments on a board. You don’t know me. You have chosen to create in your mind a person that doesn’t exist and pour your dislike of them onto me. I’m an actual person, a person you don’t even know. I’ve been here for a long time. I fuck up and loose my shit at least once a month. It mostly gets modded. Welcome to Fluther.

@cazzie You said you were leaving the CONVERSATION and i provided useful advice about how to leave said CONVERSATION without harming yourself. I never meant Fluther, perish the thought. And I never mentioned your backside.

I have absolutely no problem with you as a person and i agree with you on some threads. But IMNSHO you lose your rationality and sense of fairness when gender relations are discussed. That’s just an opinion, and it can change.

Thanks for your welcome.

@olivier5 I didn’t receive your last PM until this thread showed up. I thought it was in response to what I wrote. A misunderstanding. I apologise.

Apologies accepted. Please suffer me in return. I can be an asshole when provoked but i’m not such a bad person otherwise.

“Removed” (as in the action is not of their own doing)? No, not unless they willfully violate the terms and conditions that they voluntarily agreed to upon joining. That does not simply apply to the Internet, although the phrasing would indicate so. There are implied rules of behavior for participating in community life IRL.
If someone is extremely unpopular, and keeps behaving in ways that they know will anger/annoy/bother so many, then that person should be willing to put up with reactions that they don’t like. Expecting any other reaction would be naive.

No.

I mean, define “unpopular”.
Is it someone who simply has different opinions, or someone who attacks and berates other members?

If it’s the first one, I don’t see the reason to kick that person out. Everyone has the right to express an opinion and frankly, it’s kinda boring to look at everyone saying one and the same like parrots. There is beauty in diversity.

If it’s the second case, then it may be put into consideration if it really gets overboard, like bullying, trolling, deliberately attacking others, or continuously breaking the rules that are put there for a reason.

To be fair there may be about ten left here that are not vile and annoying. People can be unpopular for any number of reasons but they are either removed by the group, leave on their own or both. If they do not leave, are removed and are hated enough the group will leave. I don’t think unpopularity is generally enough to illicit action.

It depends on what the person is doing that makes them unpopular. Are they constantly insulting, trolling, flaming?

@SmashTheState: In your case, I’ve often wondered why you come here and insult the site and insult the fellow Jellies. I’m not saying you’re doing it on this question, but you often do it on other posts and you do it on your profile page. My opinion on that is if one really doesn’t like a certain place, they are free not to go there. If I didn’t like my last vacation spot, I’m free to never return there again. If I don’t like the setup of a certain library, nobody is making me return. If I don’t like my neighbor, I never have to visit her house if I don’t want to.

I think that the general behavioral rules are quite well thought out so as long as someone is not in violation then kicking them off the site simply for being unpopular is going overboard.

Let’s keep in mind that nobody is forced to read (or respond to) every single Q or comment made by someone unpopular. As a matter of fact, anyone is free to totally ignore or skip over any contributions by those whom they find objectionable or unpopular.

If someone doesn’t have the self control required for that simple measure, well tough for them. No need to be excessively punitive and kick someone out.

We are all adults here and even tho IRL we may have circumstances preventing us from totally ignoring someone we find irksome (like a work situation, for instance) that’s clearly not the case here on Fluther.

So, if everybody just hitches up their big boy pants, the mods are quite capable of figuring out who requires banishment. No need for an unpopularity contest. That’s childish. Fluther is not middle school.

If we’re talking real life, then definitely not. In the complex I live in, I’m not particular popular but nor am I unpopular. I’m not around enough to be either one. I show up at some events but not a lot. I smile and say hello but don’t reach out or try to include myself in many conversations. I don’t volunteer a lot but I don’t insult people or the complex, either. If they were to say I’d have to move because I’m not popular, that would just compel everyone to act like politicians: shaking hands and acting cheery to boost their ratings. That’s totally unnecessary.

Fluther is a life raft on a sometimes stormy but more often desolate, flat calm and pretty stupid world / internet. It can seem a tight fit sometimes, and the survivors crowded in here together can get snippy at each other, even as people do in good families from time to time. (I’m reminded of long car rides with four younger siblings now.) But there’s room for everyone, and even though I might have wished – might still wish, in fact – that one or more of my sisters had never been born, I wouldn’t even dream of or imagine opening the door and pushing her out.

Mostly what seems to happen is that people choose to leave (and sometimes come back). And that reminds me of what Robert Frost said about “home”:

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

@CWOTUS You started it. Ma, he pinched me!

“Pinched?” more like “He’s looking at me again!”

“He’s doing it again! And with that face, a look could kill!”

Great answer @Buttonstc.

I’d say I have unpopular political views at the moment. Any time I state them on a thread I can always count on one or two specific individuals to nitpick my comments. One of these individuals actually states their distaste for just about anything I comment on. It’s annoying and makes me not want to contribute. I wonder why this person can’t just move on and ignore me. I know he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t need to let me know every time I make a contribution to this site.

Yes, I do. Why tolerate someone who displeases you? Unless you derive pleasure from challenges or by being annoyed, I dont see a good reason to not remove the source of discomfort. It is like tolerating mosquitos even if they suck your blood and cause you to itch all over.

One of the communities I use to live in was mostly atheists and we successfully prevented a church from being built in the community. Same reason as above.

^^Or you could just ignore them.

Nobody is climbing through your flat screen to invade your space. There is no real intimidation. You could just ignore them.

One does not need to invade your personal space to be bothersome. Offences can be sensual. Furthermore, if you want to ignore a group of people, you don’t join a community, you join the wilderness. The purpose of joining a particular community is commonality of interests and socialization with your own kind. At least that is what it means for me.

Man, you’re a real sensitive kinda guy, arenchya, honz. It must be difficult, being so sensitive.

We’re talking about ignoring an individual or two here, genius, not groups of people.. Phone in every once in awhile, honz

I am but I’m not sure why you think it is difficult. If I am sensitive to the sun, I just buy some sunglasses or I find a shade. If I’m sensitive to loud sounds, I close my ears or lower the decimal. If I don’t like a particular culture, I just prevent another from coming to mine or move to one of my own. I suppose you can call that a form of ignoring.

Quantity does not matter. While one mosquito is less bothersome than many, it is still bothersome and if you don’t take care of the single mosquito, more may come.

No. It’s not a form of ignoring, it’s a form of enforcement. We live in a free country, pal. If a bunch of atheists, or a synagogue, or an ashram wants to move into your neighborhood, they have the right to do so. If you keep them out, you’re wrong. You’re living in the wrong country. I would suggest something like, say… Germany, 1933. I think you would be quite comfortable there….. Until they come after you.

You don’t seem to know the laws of your own land. Traffic and noise are major disturbances for a community. You’re not allowed to cause a disturbance. These are the common reasons used in court for why a Church or anything of the sort can not be built in a particular community.

Free country? Don’t make me laugh.

Why are religious bakers being prosecuted for refusing to make gay wedding cakes?

Why are property owners prosecuted for not accommodating the disabled?

Why are property owners prosecuted for not hiring minorities and LGBTQ?

Why are property owners obligated to pay a minimum wage?

Why are property owners not allowed to choose who they rent to?

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Exactly…. life, liberty, and property.

Speaking of equal protection of the laws. Why are there discriminatory tax brackets? Why isn’t everyone paying the same tax rate? Doesn’t sound like equal protection.

Why are americans forced to buy obamacare and those who refuse to buy it have to pay fines? Certainly doesn’t sound like the free country you’re touting.

Well, it would depend on why the person is unpopular. Just not a likeable guy? Of course not. But if he’s unpopular because he’s violent or abusive, then yes.

honz, I’d love to take your whiney little ass to Haiti for a couple months. You’d come back the States and kiss the fucking tarmac, if you didn’t die of cholera in the meantime, or the militia, or the federal soldiers, or the Touton Macoutes, or just somebody who didn’t like your face didn’t shoot you first.

Just because someone has it worse than I do doesn’t mean I can’t whine about bettering my own position.

@honz Obama care is not a form of health insurance. It’s a set of laws governing existing health insurance.
The only people who have to pay a fine are those who can afford health insurance but choose not to get it. If they have some sort of massive medical expense and no way to pay for it, the costs get put back on the people.

You just proved that the country isn’t free. Someone has to pay a fine for a service that they don’t want.

I don’t want to pay for car insurance, either, but I also don’t want some kid who got T-boned by a drunk driver to die because he couldn’t afford three days in the ICU, or to lose his job because his car is now totaled.

We pay for the privilege of living in a civilised society. If you find such things terribly inconvenient, may I suggest moving to a more desirable location? Papua New Guinea, for instance?

@honz Then DO something about it. Stop bullshitting everybody with your disengenuous outrage and DO something. It’s not as if soldiers will come to your home and destroy it and rape your SO just for kicks, take your laptop and throw your ass in jail if you get out there and agitate to right the wrongs you percieve. DO something, goddammit. You’re preaching to the choir here.

Seek, I don’t move because America is the better choice among the selection and I really don’t care about your rationale for why I should have my freedom taken away from me. It isn’t the point that is being argued. The point that is being argued is that America is not as free as it is being touted. That point has not been challenged.

Espiritus, I had no intention of taking this conversation to activism. You seem more hung up about that than I am. I’m just socializing. Politics isn’t productive. Like you implied, America still maintains the main laws that ensure stability. The rest is left up to the individual to beat the system without his futile attempts to change it.

There’s a difference between “free to reap the benefits of civilised society” and “free to stamp your feet like a toddler and demand to get what you want without contributing to society.”

Civilized is interpreted differently.

So…what is your definition of freedom @honz? Everybody getting to do anything thing they want to do? Anything at all?

Close. You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t prevent someone else from doing what they want.

…oh boy.

I do believe we have an anarchist. I wonder how that would work with 360 million people hardly enlightened enough to handle it. By the way, who won the game last night?

No, because in anarchism there is no authority to prevent or stop someone from violating someone else’s freedom. That is where government comes into play. Military, police, justice system, contracts, property, etc..

OK. What do you have in mind?

Edited my previous response. ^

I see it. What do you have in mind?

A little more specific.

Well, you’re obviously unhappy with the way things are going. What specifically would you like to change first?

Where’s the military, police, justice system, etc going to come from if no one wants to pay taxes?

I’m just going to answer the question, well…kinda
I remember Auggie not totally ruling out a “kangaroo court” if sufficient numbers rallied against an irksome individual here, she posted as much on a related thread ooh, about 4yrs ago I think.
I remember thinking the idea stunk the place out & still do, not a good move at all.

Guys…the person doesn’t even know what Obamacare is! Why would we argue with them?

@ucme I’m pretty sure that the people that have been banned were threatening, sexually or otherwise.

Jesus. Kangaroo court? Man, this place would get a lot smaller real quick if that was ever unleashed.

So why did I get kicked? Community didn’t like me?

Who were you in a past incarnation?

honz… I was typing and then it said my account is gone. I just used a different vpn to log in under this new account name because they banned the previous ip address.

@Dutchess_III Not about those members, kick them fuckers out…twice.
No, this was about, well, frankly, hounding out someone who was just unliked if a group lobbied for it, behind the scenes of course.

Hm, can’t say. Perhaps a moderator will chime in.

Um… @honz1, please tell me that you’re not so naive as to believe that “free” (in “free country”) is not actually referring to currency value?

Hang on, I need to find out why I was kicked before I start typing a response.

Oh, shit. It’s the CIA again.

Tie me kangaroo down sport

Oh, I know it is! It’s [redacted.]

Espiritus, some of the things I would change are the one’s I asked you about earlier. An equal tax rate for all, return choice to property owners, and restrict government interference between two consenting adults when doing business.

Seek, if someone doesn’t want government protection then they don’t have to pay for the service through taxes. Their own personal violations will be their own responsibility.

Dutchess, help me understand it. If I have to pay a fine for a service I do not want to purchase, how is that an example of freedom?

canidmajor, which one of my statements are you referring?

Let’s not bring Rolf Harris into this @ucme. There are limits!

No, honz, you didn’t get kicked because we don’t like you. No. 1, we don’t have that kind of power and No.2 who says we don’t like you? You came in a little robust, some of your ideas about freedom and civilization were a little, uh, new, but that doesn’t make enemies here. I suggest you contact a moderator and get whatever is wrong straightened out. You just go to the top of the page to the highest tabs and click “Contact the Mods”.

It’s to protect every other citizen in the country @honz1. If you can afford health insurance, but refuse to get it, who pays your medical bills if you can’t? Every other citizen in the country, that’s who.
Why should your freedoms limit mine?

No one should pay my medical bills if I can’t. That isn’t freedom. I don’t understand your explanation. Both of your responses are examples of limiting freedom.

Indeed @Earthbound_Misfit haha

@honz

Ok, you’re talking a flat tax. I’ve always thought that was a good idea.

I’m not sure what you mean by a “return choice for property owners.” Please explain.

I’ve never been a business man, I was a nurse, so I don’t know much about the problems of government interference in business. I hear a lot complaints, though. Many small business mean feel smothered by regulation. But I’m not the guy to talk to about that. I think you would find a stolid and well-informed sympathizer in Cruizer..

@honz1 You know why you were kicked. Read the forum rules about multiple accounts.

Uh, oh, honz. That thing about not wanting gov services and not paying? That won’t work.

Espiritus, use some of the examples I gave you. A property owner refusing service to a customer like the case of the gay wedding cake and the religious bakers or the ability to discriminate between who you rent your property, or the ability to negotiate wages between employees and employers without their being a government standard, or having to build a store that has the disabled in mind or ability to smoke. Things of that nature.

Why won’t it work? If you don’t want social security, you don’t have to pay for it. You can take your money and invest it on your own. Those that want to participate can pay and continue using it. What is the problem?

are you kidding me, I think you may be mistaking me for someone else. Maybe that is why I was kicked? Some mod thinks I’m someone else?

Nope. You are talking to a dyed in the wool Social Democrat who has been around and around long enough to know that without the regs you speak of—minimum wage, equal opportunity in housing, anti-discrimination laws—this country would turn into Ghana overnight. And remember, we are a well-armed Republic. You would have blood in the streets and martial law. Talking to the wrong guy. But you may have sympathizers here who may want to fine tune your ideas with you.

But let me ask you a question. Do you believe we are here to make this world a better place for everyone to safely raise children to reach their highest potential, or do you believe that by allowing every man to pursue his destiny separately and independently is the goal in itself?

Anti-Discrimination laws are there to protect people who need protection, because some people are assholes.

Every citizen has the right to conduct normal business, and not have public services withheld from them because some asshole has crazy ideas about what being “civil” means.

No, you don’t have the right to not rent a home to a black guy or a disabled guy or a couple of lesbians because you don’t like their kind. You have the right to not like their kind, but you don’t have the right to decide who your business serves. The 14th amendment of the Constitution decrees all people have equal protection under the law. Period.

espiritus, I don’t see a separation between the two options you presented. I believe that by allowing every man to pursue his destiny separately and independently you’re making the world a better place for everyone. To limit or take from one to better another is a rotten foundation.

Seek, discrimination can’t depend on deprivation. If someone has their own property, liberty and life, you can’t take away from that to help someone who wants something that isn’t theirs. I think that is a rotten foundation.

If we are to believe that all people have equal protection under the law, then you must respect the property owners decisions. Those laws can’t be violated.

Well, I will tell you this, my friend. What you are talking about is a world like the game of Monopoly, where everyone is out to get everything they can at any cost with no concern for the other players. In the real world, that means children will go without food, shortages will occur, wars more than we have now will erupt.

Whether you like or not, you are your brother’s keeper and the way we can make that place where every child can be raised in safety and reach their potential and rightful place in this world is to work together.

And that means that we, as tribe, if you will, live under rules that give each member a fighting chance at security and we must throw some of our wealth into the pot for the larger things—whether each individual makes use of them or not—such as sewers, schools, hospitals that should never have been privatized, etc., etc. because we are a society, not a bunch individuals out seeking treasure for themselves. If each man were to design, build and pay for his own sewer or his own electrical line, there would be no standards, only chaos. And it would be enormously more expensive.

And then there are the people who haven’t the capacity to garner wealth, such as children, the aged, the mentally challenged. Should we just leave them all in the snow?

“You just proved that the country isn’t free. Someone has to pay a fine for a service that they don’t want.”
That one.

@honz is a garden-variety Randroid. I could pick apart his noxious political views, but I’d rather let Errico Malatesta do it for me:

“Individualism is, in theory, a kind of Anarchy without cooperation. It is therefore no better than a lie, because liberty is not possible without Solidarity, without cooperation. The criticism which Individualists pass on government is merely the wish to deprive it of certain functions, to hand them over virtually to the capitalists. But it cannot attack those repressive functions which form the essence of government, for without an armed force the proprietary system could not be upheld.”

I kinda want to take the “Randroids” as Smash put it, and drop them onto an island somewhere with no infrastructure, no tools, no supplies, and let them figure it out for themselves.

See how well your “freedom” works for you when you haven’t started life on third base with a power hitter coming up to bat.

@Seek http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif

^^Right now that place would be Ghana, where the man with the most guns makes the rules, controls all food, all potable water and all rights to land and virgins, if you will. And he is at constant war with the men around him who also have the most guns in their areas. No working telephone system, all infrastructure is ignored and falling apart because that man’s family has no use for them. They have their own. No economy to speak of. Nice place for a young man to make his start in life.

@SmashTheState – Yep, pretty much. That’s also why I don’t fear the zombie apocalypse.

Got banned again. Was typing a response and it got erased. Sorry I can’t reply to you all. I guess this answers your question. If you’re unpopular with the mods, you getting kicked.

Have you had any communication with the mods, @honz123 or @honz1 or @honz ? Because even though I’m not a mod, and even though I have had my issues with mods in the past, I would bet this month’s paychecks that you’re not being booted from Fluther for anything you’ve said in this thread.

I contacted them. No response. Just an instant ban.

yeah – you’re not being banned for that. If you were here before as someone else and were banned and they recognized your IP addresses, then you would be banned. Only you know if that’s so.

If someone was banned, then they can’t reconnect to fluther. It would be impossible for them to ban me based on a previous IP that was banned

Someone is keeping the mods busy tonight.

The only reason I can keep coming back is because I have a million VPNs but I can’t use the other two that they banned.

How do you know so fucking much about Fluther if you’re a newbie?

I was banned. I couldn’t reconnect. Logically, that means the IP was banned.

Why in the world do you require a million VPNs? Who are you? Julian Assange?

This is the internet and I like my privacy.

This is the internet and privacy is an illusion.

You heard of Snowden, I’m sure. That should be an eye opener.

@honz123: Why not just keep your original identity and keep it at that?

I just told you why…

I knew it. It’s the CIA. You got the CIA back on our asses again, didn’t you? Damn. Those guys are a bitch to get rid of.

I break the law on a pretty regular basis. In fact, I think breaking the law is good for the soul and everyone should do it at least once a day. But in all the decades of activism and organizing I’ve done, I’ve worn handcuffs precisely once, and even then they were not able to successfully obtain a conviction. Why? Because I’m careful and because I don’t put anything on my computer I wouldn’t stand up in a court of law and defend. I just assume that everything I do on my computer is monitored and recorded.

Espiritus, Do you watch the show Homeland? Their depiction of incompetence isn’t that far off from the real thing.

I live in a whorehouse on Martinique. I have no need for television. I get all the drama I need right here in the hotel.

Sounds pretty extreme. You need a healthy balance.

I think you guys are giving the mods here too much credit. I mean for all you or I know, they can make any excuse they want for banning someone. That don’t make it true.

I have a 42 foot yacht for that.

Pics or it doesn’t exist.

I too enjoy my privacy. But you can ask anyone here. We’re all pretty out front and honest—including the mods.

I have plenty of reasons to be skeptical for the “mods we trust” slogan. Just look at reddit’s history. Mods started banning comments, threads, users, that were all of “controversial” material. There was a massive exodus because of that. Even had a CEO resign but the damage was done.

Yeah, but you see, this isn’t Reddit. It’s even spelled differently.

I’ve been a mod on this site. Yes, they can ban your IP. They can also see every account you’ve logged in under on any IP. And since you keep naming yourself the same thing, you’ve made it really obvious that you’re the same person they keep banning. Duh.

[Mod Says] Just in case it wasn’t obvious, @honz is one of our recurring trolls. That’s why he was banned immediately upon discovery. And whether he realizes it or not, it is abundantly clear from our end that we have not mistaken him for someone else.

You don’t know me. You have chosen to create in your mind a person that doesn’t exist and pour your dislike of them onto me.
Ahhhh…..so that is why people who feel they know me fabricate things I never said, twist my words, or out and out just lie about what I said or mean….they really have a problem with themselves or something else and just directed it at me being an outlier here, I can be an easy bushwhack.

Thank you mods for freeing us of this nuisance.

For the record, Ghana isn’t that bad. The two Congos, Nigeria or Indeed Papua New Guinea are better example of a “far west economy”.

Awwww…..Neptune ate @honz123….. Hope Neptune had the decency of at least adding him to a bouillabaisse before chomping him down.

@Hypocrisy_Central You’ve been here a really long time, as have some of us. But, you just keep telling yourself what you need to hear to keep yourself happy. You are really good at it. (that much about you, we old-timers know well)

Honzk if you’re a migratory troll. lol

No, I do not believe unpopularity is a reason to remove somebody, unless they are a complete pervert or abusive. In these instances absolutely.
Like the guy some years back that was pm’ing us women and asking intimate sexual questions. Not acceptable.

Being an anarchist is your choice but, if one is going to wear the derby of discordance and deliberately come up swinging all the time, well… don’t cry when someone knocks the asshat off your head.

@honz1 “No one should pay my medical bills if I can’t. ” But they do. You file bankruptcy, the doctors and hospitals don’t get paid for taking care of you, they raise the prices on everything to cover it.
(I see 3 different “honz”‘s just on this thread….)

Please explain what “freedom” means to you @honz10, @honz123, @honz1, @honz.

@Dutchess_III He’s a banned troll; don’t feed him.

So you figure freedom means each person can do whatever he or she wants?

Why is this person still posting if they have been banned?

@honz10 Yes, I do believe the mods, they have no reason to lie to us here and @SavoirFaire made it perfectly clear they know who you are and what you are doing. Have fun @honz10 , your latest jig will be up soon.

Well, I have no idea which of your incarnations said what. Just answer “Yes,” and leave it, or “No,” and explain. Do you think freedom means each person can do whatever he or she wants?

@Coloma (He has no less than 4 incarnations that he’s using on this thread alone!)

You know exactly where you answered the question. I don’t. You don’t have to hunt for it. I do. And I did look, didn’t see anything that addressed my question. But whatevs.

@Alrighty, You are free to go. See ya.

You have wasted more time and characters calling me names that it would have taken to answer a simple question! I assume you don’t have an answer.

Are you the “Marwyn” imposter? Wouldn’t surprise me.

What the pinguin said.

@honz10 And YOU don’t seem to understand that we don’t have to stand breathless at your every word. Your arguments here show the maturity of a a 19 year old boy living in his parent’s basement. You won’t listen and you so obviously don’t know, yet, how the real world works. What you know about real life principals would fit on the tiniest of postage stamps in Times Roman 10pt.
We don’t need to assume anything because, with your verbal diarrhea , you are providing yourself enough odourous rope to hang yourself. Enjoy the breeze.

Keep writing…. I’m waiting….. Keep that rope coming man…..

I’m old and wise. You are using a thesaurus.

Don’t kick too much while you hang. It’s never a good look. Acting humble when the truth is obvious is just another way of lying.

Don’t care your colour. Don’t care your economic class. What I care about, as an educator, is your lack of knowledge.

Oh, GEEZZZ… if you are a kid of colour, I really truly apologise for the rope reference… shit… that just made me feel really sick…..... Sorry.

I often use that reference for anyone who tells so much bullshit that they supply enough ammunition to shoot themselves in the foot. See… It could be any analogy….. I need to revisit that.

Awww… shit….. I’m going to have to rethink this one. pit in stomach I am sensitive on many levels….. but not ignorance. Especially dismissal of empirical evidence and double standards. What I am saying here, I stand by my replies… perhaps just not the visual liberties I took.

Good. Shut up and listen.

What did I say in response to this thread? Now, you can’t ask me,.... you should have read everything and committed to memory. What did I say?

Kids, don’t make me turn this car around.

@Seek can we just leave him at a wayside? The mods have tried over and over here. they know he is a troll.

Clean up in aisle 10!

BUT, you obviously don’t.

Education is a two way process, mate.

Awwww…... give him a cookie…... Doesn’t he deserve a cookie? Make sure he has a warm blanket and his favourite cuddle toy as well. His carrying shows a certain level of maturity. Don’t forget his pacifier. He may want that as well. He might wake up a bit grumpy from his nap, so be sure to give him time to cuddle.

Look, mate, seriously,... If you want to learn in this life stop looking for self affirming shit on the internet and learn from some folks who might actually teach you shit. Real shit about life.

Maybe he just needs a little sprinkle of cayenne Pepper in his nappy, really give him something to cry about. lol

Let’s replace the Balmex with Bengay.

Hey, is that an old joke? OH! you know something about the troll!!!! Brilliant.

I am not your parent…. and you don’t seem to be of the temperament you might open yourself up to learning…. There is really only one word for that in my dictionary….. TROLL.

When did the definition of troll change? Because once upon a time, trolls were people who deliberately incited chaos by emotional manipulation, but somewhere along the line people decided that “trolling” actually meant expressing any view a sufficient number of people disagree with. And this is very relevant to my question, because I am constantly accused of trolling on Fluther on no greater basis than that my views reflect an extremely different reality than the one to which most people here have been exposed. The idea, for example, that I could hold the middle class in the same contempt with which the middle class holds the lumpen proles is considered highly offensive and “trollish.”

@honz doesn’t appear to be a troll to me. A self-important blowhard with distasteful political and social beliefs based on a life of privilege, yes, but honestly professed. This is exactly what I was asking about in the original question. There’s no question that @honz professes views antithetical to most people here (and me also, but for entirely different reasons), but is that and the way he expresses those views sufficient justification for compelling him to leave the community? If so, what separates @honz from me?

He didn’t come here to learn….. Don’t fucking kid yourself. And Trolls were only ever there to aggravate and never had any discussion or line of debate in mind….....Trolls were NEVER constructive. Just like this one.

@cazzie But, you just keep telling yourself what you need to hear to keep yourself happy. You are really good at it.
I leave that to others, and they sure believe they are better at it, and maybe they are with all the backslapping they give themselves. They sure seem happy for that. ~~

Gosh, I’lll miss those back slapping meetings we give each other, if @Hypocrisy_Central ever leaves….. That would be so sad. I surely would miss you all…. you know who you are.

[Mod Says] Please don’t feed the trolls.

@SmashTheState The definition of “trolling” hasn’t changed, at least not as far as this site’s moderators are concerned. But just because @honz‘s contributions to this particular question don’t appear to you to count as trolling doesn’t mean that @honz isn’t a troll. Leaving aside the fact that you can only see what hasn’t been moderated, you also don’t know what he has posted to other questions or what any of his previous iterations have posted. The content of his opinions have nothing to do with it. If they did, we’d have to ban all of the jellies with comparable views (which, if you look around, we haven’t done). But there is a long history with this particular person, and a continuous pattern of trolling that goes beyond any particular views expressed.

^^ [..if @Hypocrisy_Central ever leaves….. That would be so sad.
Sad? (chuckle) No, boring would be more the case. With all of the fluff it would have the appeal of flat root beer, all the excitement of a soda cracker lying motionless on a table, and have the significance of vapor, even lighter than vapor, less those that thrive off fluff.

Yes Mod.

@SmashTheState The distinctive characteristics in Honz are the lack of a listening capacity, and the soapbox harranging again and again and again. By contrast, you Smash can have a true conversation, and you don’t consume the same bandwidth Technically he is more of a harranger than a troll but the result is the same: a disruption of the conversation, lots of noize but no real debate, members disengaging…

Why speak to someone who doesn’t want to listen?

Apparently the ‘honz’ is back.

Edit: now his < ∞ iteration is also gone.

@SmashTheState

See what I mean? if you recall, in my original answer I said that the mods were more than capable of figuring out who requires banishment. And we just had a perfect demonstration of that. No need for an unpopularity contest.

There is a big difference between you and honz 123etc.

Every Sesame St. needs their Oscar the Grouch and if he left, they’d miss him. So, you’ve sorta nominated yourself as our own Oscar the Grouch but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re unpopular to quite as many folks as you’ve built up in your own mind.

My impression is that it isn’t so much the anarchist viewpoint you express but more the broad brush with which you paint all the members of Fluther as some evil cabal. Some people tend to take that kind of personally.

I guess one of the reasons I don’t is because of the old axiom, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” Well, it doesn’t fit me so I’m not wearing it just because you seem to think that everyone who is a member of Fluther should. As far as I’m concerned, you’re wrong so I don’t have to personalize it.

I find the anarchist viewpoints you express interesting to contemplate. Perhaps some of my attitude towards that is a carryover from my previous experience of the anarchist community in Phila when I lived there.

A lot of people were familiar with the A-house (since the anarchist symbol was painted large on the front door) in West Philly and some of their activities to do as much as they could to even out the huge disparity between the rich HAVES and the less fortunate HAVE-NOTS.

For quite a while (until the rents got too high) they had a used bookstore called The Wooden Shoe on South St. which they used to raise funds for their various projects. They were quite active in support of the LGBTQ community and also had regular prison visitation teams among others.

However, their primary difference from you was that they were, by and large, a happy and welcoming bunch of people. That doesn’t mean that they ever bypassed any opportunity to iterate clearly the basic anarchist principles by which they chose to live. But they weren’t so off-puttingly hostile about it constantly as you seem to be.

And, from my personal observation, their methodology seemed to effectively reach more people than yours. At least if your chosen demeanor on Fluther is any indication. You might want to give that some thought one day when you’re in a contemplative mood.

Or don’t. It’s your decision. But if you really want to reach people with your message it might be interesting to remember that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, to borrow a phrase here. Constantly insulting people and ascribing the worst possible motives to their actions doesn’t exactly make anybody more eager to hear your message. And I’m not saying this with hostility towards you for every time you return from one of your long absences, I’m genuinely glad to see you back. You’re an interesting person.

You keep assuming that it’s because of the viewpoints you hold that people don’t flock eagerly to you. It’s not the anarchist position which is the primary problem here. It’s the anger and hostility with which you’ve chosen to express it. I’ve met and had quite a few meaningful conversations with enough anarchists of all stripes to know this.

You describe yourself as a shit-stirrer and if you’re in the streets with a bullhorn protesting against an uncaring bureaucracy then that calls for some anger. But Fluther is not the streets.

There are many intelligent and thoughtful people participating on Fluther (which you will acknowledge if you give yourself a moment of honest reflection) so an angry bullhorn approach isn’t really the best way to present your views. Unlike politicians and bureaucracies,
most regulars of Fluther do have the ability to thoughtfully consider what you are trying to get across. That doesn’t mean instant agreement, of course, but you will be heard and perhaps even challenged. That’s pretty much the whole idea behind this place, unlike a self serving bureaucracy.

But if you muddy the waters with so much hostility, it just creates too much static for a lot of people to want to wade through. So, in essence, you’re creating your own static which interferes with your views and then blaming it on your unpopularity or the oppression of Fluther.

Why not take a more thoughtful approach? This is basically what most of the folks at the A-house chose to do in addition to their various projects. If there were any angry insulting types among them, I never encountered them. Although, truth be told, I certainly wouldn’t have bothered to try conversing with them and would have avoided them like the plague in the future. Not because of their ideas but because of the attitude.

I have no idea whether anything I’ve written might be helpful to you but it’s the truth, as I see it.

I don’t know whether you remember this, but a few years ago you posted a Q about the toll it was taking upon you personally to constantly be so confrontational and shit-stirring and how to prevent burnout. I forget precisely how you worded it but that’s the basic gist of it. You were clearly experiencing depression from it but since your role was basically to organize protests it was difficult to find much happiness or joy from it.

Well, why not drop the protester shit-stirrer persona when on Fluther and just relax a bit and be yourself. That doesn’t mean abandoning your ideas or principles. Just present them thoughtfully without the bullhorn, insults and anger. Just relax and let the ideas speak for themselves. As I said, Fluther is not the streets so you really don’t need your street protester attitude and persona. Give it a try and see whether a more relaxed approach makes life here in the lagoon just a tiny bit more enjoyable and fulfilling. Who knows, you might even enjoy it more.

@Buttonstc ^ That was just exceptional!

@Buttonstc nailed it. I think we do tolerate a fairly wide variety of opinions and personalities and encompass a wide variety (although admittedly mainly liberals) but what we react to generally is arrogance and condescension.

You have a lot to offer Fluther both in terms of your knowledge of practical matters and your social and political experience and outlook. We just don’t like getting dumped on. So please stick around but maybe think of being a bit more moderate – not in your beliefs but in your tone.

And what ^^ she said so well.

Hey, I’m always willing to jump on the fresh start wagon but yeah, wrapping all of fluthers members here in some soiled blanket of uncaring, bourgeois, capitalistic jerks is not the way to win friends and influence people.

Funny that this guy honz’s first message here was: Yes, I do. Why tolerate someone who displeases you? Unless you derive pleasure from challenges or by being annoyed, I dont see a good reason to not remove the source of discomfort. It is like tolerating mosquitos…

[Mod says: ;-P ] SMACK! SMACK!!... SMACK! Got him…

@olivier5 And the mosquito had been here already and swatted off in its previous incarnations.

They tend to come back.

This lagoon is BLESSED with a lack of trolls. You Jellies have been sheltered from the scum of the Interseas, the rubish of the WWO (world wide ocean, of course), and you should thank Neptune everyday for his moderation. As I do already.

@Buttonstc A large part of the reason I find Fluther so frustrating is because most of you appear completely oblivious to your biases. See, you think I’m being pointlessly antagonistic to people who are just being reasonable and nice. But people here are not reasonable and nice. Extremely ugly, hateful, harmful bigotry is constantly on display here without people even being aware they’re doing it. For example, people on Fluther are constantly pushing the obnoxious myth of the deserving poor. In fact, they not only push the myth of the deserving poor, they pat each other on the back for it, like they’re wonderful human beings for promoting it.

@h0nz The fact is that you are a banned ex member that has returned over and over and over again and the site moderators have decided to swat your buzzy little ass out of the zone here.
Has nothing to do with the rest of us. Your next swatting is imminent. Why not just buzz off gracefully?

@SmashTheState You are so completely off base, but more to the point, and this has been asked before, many times, If you find us all so noxious why do you still come around?
We extend an olive branch and you come back slinging the same old worn out fallacies. It is you that is not nice nor reasonable but you can’t see your own projections so maybe join up with Mosquito boy above you and you both can buzz the fuck off.

@Coloma I could just as easily wonder why you and @canidmajor follow me around from question to question and tell me to fuck off. You could just ignore me, you know. There are people here – including the anti-me who is always on the opposite side of every topic no matter what it is or which question she’s answering – who simply ignore me. There’s something about my unwillingness to accept your sacred cows which makes you so outraged that you are completely incapable of ignoring me.

Cruiser and I are totally opposed to each other on virtually everything, and I suspect if we ever met across a picket line one of us would end up in handcuffs (or worse), but while we will disagree with each here, neither one of us cares enough to follow the other around and snipe at the other.

I don’t approve of your attitudes, your political ideology, or your social class. I am not actually required to do so, even by the unwritten rules of Fluther. If you can’t deal with that, then feel free to ignore me.

@Buttonstc My impression is that it isn’t so much the anarchist viewpoint you express but more the broad brush with which you paint all the members of Fluther as some evil cabal.
Is that not what some do here, even to the point of fabricating lies? Some also do it in regard to the church, which I guess are issues they have with a God they do not exist, but since they cannot box, defeat, or best God, His people are all they have left to revile against; and it is done so with a very, very broad brush.

@SmashTheState A large part of the reason I find Fluther so frustrating is because most of you appear completely oblivious to your biases.
But people here are not reasonable and nice. Extremely ugly, hateful,harmful bigotry is constantly on display here without people even being aware they’re doing it.
Some people are aware of it, and if they returned the labels and with the distain and malice they were given, they would run to the mods to have the person’s account terminated and not with extreme prejudice either.

it is like walking in a room where many have BO, and the room smells of cigarettes and cheap liquor, and when anyone says ”what is that smell in here?” everyone in the room say they did not smell anything.

@SmashTheState Nobody is following you around, don’t flatter yourself, and, I find it exceedingly hilarious that you even, remotely, presume to know my “attitudes”, politics, social class or that of anyone else here. You know nothing because you are too busy making ass-umptions of others that refuse to bow in awe before your greatness and cling to your every word to affirm your self proclaimed guru of rebellion status.
Again, you flatter yourself, as if your “approval” is something you seem to think I, or anyone else here might desire. You can’t be serious, talk about ego. haha

That’s rich beyond words, and yep, you are absolutely correct, I will never darken your cloudy doorstep again. You are addicted to discord, negativity, hatred and judgement of those you know absolutely nothing about in real life. You are a boiling cauldron of animosity and a walking grievance just looking for a cause and we, the good people of Fluther, are not going to stand for being scapegoated.
My sincere apologies for thinking you might, just might, be capable of some small measure of rationality and common decency, I was mistaken, clearly.

You are so entrenched in your dysfunctions and disturbances and so quick to judge the totality of others based on your own dysfunctional views that you can’t see the forest for the trees. Man, I’d give fucking anything to read your psychoanalysis notes. Without your rebel with a thousand causes identity you would disintegrate like a puff of smoke. Fitting as you are nothing more than a blowhard and a bully to begin with.

You can take your bullhorn to the grave and you will no doubt be buried with it. Happy trails.

@Smash

At the risk of making myself look exceedingly dumb, could you drop me a clue about what precisely is ” the obnoxious myth of the deserving poor” which I along with “most of Fluther” are apparently constantly
pushing?

Since I have no idea what this myth is, its difficult to know if the shoe fits or not.

Maybe my brain is just too fried to think straight after more than almost two months of no solid food, i dont know.

Do me a favor and draw it out in crayon for me, if necessary. If you have any examples of where I or anyone else has been promoting this, that would help as well because right now im honestly stumped.

@Buttonstc He means that we all pay lip service to the poor being deserving of care but, because we don’t actually, invite them into our homes we are just the “bourgeois” class spewing politically correct words of compassion. I know, for a fact, his off base ass-umptions about me stem from some of my sharing from 5+ years or more ago, of living on a rural property with my pets, enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle and didn’t turn my property into a homeless camp that I am a “bourgeois” bitch!
In his opinion anyone that has more than 2 nickels to rub together and lives in a decent home with enough resources to be comfortable is “bourgeois” and turns a blind eye to the suffering of humanity. Well, so sorry that I didn’t invite a bunch of homeless people to squat on my land.

I am evil incarnate, clearly.

@Buttonstc It has nothing to do with what @Coloma claims. The concept of the deserving poor has a long, evil history. The idea is that the more pitiful you are, the more deserving you are of help. If you have a visible deformity or crippling injury, then you deserve alms. But if you look able-bodied, then you should be whipped and left to starve or imprisoned for the crime of being poor. It’s why panhandlers in wheelchairs make three or four times as much as other panhandlers.

Liberals love to gush over the pitiful and helpless, even becoming poverty pimps so they can make a nice middle class income while getting warm fuzzies for keeping people weak and unable to help themselves. When we tried to set up a street newspaper in Ottawa so panhandlers could sell something instead, our biggest opponents were liberals, suburbanites, BIA capitalists, and poverty pimps working for NGOs who would rather see people swept out of sight into their shelters and endless social programs so the poverty industry is maintained.

Years of arguing with liberals on Fluther has taught me the futility of arguing about this shit here. The myth of the deserving poor is so indoctrinated into liberals that all you get are a stream of urban legends about able-bodied panhandlers driving Cadillacs and living in million dollar condos.

Right, if they “look” able bodied and are able bodied but choose to drink and shoot heroin all day well….no urban legend there, just facts. Make your bed, fucking lie in it.

See what I mean?

See what I mean?

Smash is our own ultra-leftist Trump. Same blow-hard attitude, same use of wornout populist clichés, frequent resort to insults and even similarly vain ego. Both speak for the common man, and both are fake, too: me guess Smash does not really believe in half of what he professes here.

@olivier5 I’m not sure you know him that well.

Just as a note of clarification, I identify as a mutualist anarchist. It’s generally held to be slightly right of centre. A lifetime of organizing with reds, leftists, and campus radicals has convinced me I have no desire for share-and-share-alike with people who love waving flags at protests but vanish without a trace when there’s work which needs doing.

More broad-brush painting by Smash. Not sure when I last ”gushed over the pitiful and helpless..” Maybe I should start today.

Everything is relative of course, but to me anarchy is not “slightly right of center”, whether mutualist or not. It’s an ultra-left political position. I don’t mean that as derogatory. Slighly right of center is where the US democrats are.

https://i.imgur.com/Qlg4LUj.png

Anarchism spans the entire left/right spectrum from anarchocommunists like Piotr Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin on the far left to ultra-individualists like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker on the far right.

^^ Does that mean that you use the spectrum between collectivism and individualism as your primary indicator of who is where on the left-right political spectrum? Because there could be other indicators, like whether you root for the poor or for the rich.

I would LOVE to unleash @SmashTheState on the posers here in Svartlamoen.