LMAO: I really didn't mean to restart the debate. I got my say on that already.

Thank's for replying so quickly, but I'm not buying what you're selling, Mike.

When I was living in vermont I attended a forum on racism. People were telling horrible stories about police harrasment, housing discrimination, public degradation, you know, very real stuff.

Then Snow White stands up and starts with the platitudes, "Stand up together and walk hand and hand into the future..." blah blah blah freakin blah. You know... all the stuff us white folks tell oursellves to make ourselves feel like we're a part of the solution without having to actually do anything.

God I wanted to throw a rock at that woman.

About 15 minutes into her white-bread diatribe the rest of the audience was clearly feeling the same way.

Finally the moderator asks her to stop. He has a volunteer take her name and number so they can contact her to help. She is escorted from the room.

A freind of mine, a reporter, mentions this. He doesn't use the word censorship. He just mentions that a white woman was interrupted in the middle of speaking and asked to stop.

All hell broke loose. Every black leader in town (most of whom hadn't even attended the meeting, btw) were screaming fo his head. A week later he was fired.

He sued. And Won. And the judge was not so gentle. He DID use the word "censorship". The moderator WAS out of line. Even us idiots have the right to express ourselves.

You say you didn't actutually delete anything. Granted. All you did was shut down the debate. That's censorship, too.

You say the debate didn't matter because the decision was made. Granted. Does it logically follow then that those of us who think it was a bad decision should just shut up and fall in with the party line? It doen't necessarilly follow that the discussion serves "No useful purpose". I'm a part of this community and I'm not cvomfortable with it. How do you know someone smarter than me isn't going to come along and smooth my ruffled feathers? I think our advertisers would agree that's a "useful purpose", yes?

You say that people were being preposterous about the poll results. Granted. No "But". That's just dumb.

You say the thread was about to spiral into a flamefest. Can't argue with that one, either. I'll just have to cede to your psychic precognition. My ability to foresee future events disappeared about the same time I stopped doing acid.

You know not everybody lives in here. I myself have been away for weeks at a time.

How exactly were "voices silenced"? How was the "minority unable to dissent"?

By shutting down the thread before everybody saw it or had a chnce to respond. I didn't even see the poll until about an hour before you shut it down.

I think you shut that thread down because you made a decision and worked hard to impliment it and when you presented it a lot of people responded negatively. I think that pissed you off and you just didn't want to hear it.

Mike, as admin of this forum, you are a decision maker. One of the ugly truths of being a decision maker is that not every decision you make is going to popular, and EVERY decision you make is going to have detractors. And you know what? Sometimes those detractors are going to be right. As admin of this forum it is your responsibility to LISTEN, even if you want to throw a rock at us.

I gotta go. I've used up all my breaks on this post.

:)

By the way, that means I still care.