Our open forum.......

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

If you do not know what natural, God given rights are then you will never understand.

Sincerely, Clayton

Puhleese, let's leave the "my god is mightier than yours" nonsense out of this discussion of baseball card chat board policies. Assuming arguendo there is a god, I don't think she cares about what is posted here.

But I digress. Leon, you are doing just fine with this board in terms of content of speech. About the only speech that needs to be regulated are (1) posts threatening other people, and (2) posts by scammers seeking to rip off people. Those things are damaging to the community and in violation of the rules already. The rest is fair game as far as I am concerned.

I also think that whoever it was who pitched the hissy fit needs to grow a pair. Ten seconds after the post is put up no one is really going to care that someone made #2 on your auctions unless you really are dirty. In all candor, most of the ranters who see conspiracies under every rock on Ebay or at a TPG and post about it incessantly sound demented inside of a few posts. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

[Rickyy]

Fine as is Leon....you do a really fine job of keeping the riff raffs to a minimum... besides we seem to have all the guys (and gals?) with legal backgrounds chime in when we are edging towards the ledge of trouble... I feel safe and warm in here most days...

Ricky Y

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Puhleese, let's leave the "my god is mightier than yours" nonsense out of this discussion of baseball card chat board policies. Assuming arguendo there is a god, I don't think she cares about what is posted here.

Where the heck did that come from? He said "God given rights" - that could be any god of any religion. If you have such a problem with someone believing that there is a god, you should move to Seattle.

[teetwoohsix]

"Puhleese, let's leave the "my god is mightier than yours" nonsense out of this discussion of baseball card chat board policies. Assuming arguendo there is a god, I don't think she cares about what is posted here."

What a way to twist my words around. You must be a lawyer.

Sincerely, Clayton

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

"Puhleese, let's leave the "my god is mightier than yours" nonsense out of this discussion of baseball card chat board policies. Assuming arguendo there is a god, I don't think she cares about what is posted here."

What a way to twist my words around. You must be a lawyer.

Sincerely, Clayton

Nice ad hominem attack there, buddy. I don't see what my job has to do with anything, anymore than my race or national origin.

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Nice ad hominem attack there, buddy. I don't see what my job has to do with anything, anymore than my race or national origin.

I think I mentioned the word "God" one time.....are you that sensitive? I said "you must be a lawyer" because lawyers are good at twisting people's words around, which is what you did with my statement. You are, in my opinion, leaning this thread into a "religious" thing.

Sincerely, Clayton

[Cardboard Junkie]

I'm so glad I did a lot of acid in the sixties.

[teetwoohsix]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Sincerely, Clayton

[cyseymour]

Freedom of Speech is a natural law, but so is the right to defend oneself and one's property. So when two natural laws conflict, which one prevails? In cases of slander or defamation, US law generally believes that it is a limit to free speech and the right to defend one's property (by extension their reputation) would prevail.

But to each his own opinion...

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by runscott

if you have such a problem with someone believing that there is a god, you should move to seattle.

lol

[Shoele$$]

Originally Posted by Runscott

If you have such a problem with someone believing that there is a god, you should move to Seattle.

lol, good one...

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Shoele$$

lol, good one...

Right, from a guy who lives in Vegas...Say, maybe I could go to Las Vegas instead? I could make that work...

[Shoele$$]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Right, from a guy who lives in Vegas...Say, maybe I could go to Las Vegas instead? I could make that work...

With your attitude...you're better off staying where you're at

We have enough socially awkward people here to last us a lifetime, we're good, thanks though.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Shoele$$

With your attitude...you're better off staying where you're at

We have enough socially awkward people here to last us a lifetime, we're good, thanks though.

It's tough avoiding the temptation to 'win' discussions in an internet forum - most fail (to avoid the temptation), and I certainly include myself in that group. When this happens, all you can do is apologize and move on. There are a few people in this forum who I have offended at one time or another, and who have refused to forget and move on. It makes me uncomfortable to be so important to someone who I have never met.

I sincerely hope to meet a good chunk of you at the National, and to mend some of the past offenses.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Runscott

It's tough avoiding the temptation to 'win' discussions in an internet forum - most fail (to avoid the temptation), and I certainly include myself in that group. When this happens, all you can do is apologize and move on. There are a few people in this forum who I have offended at one time or another, and who have refused to forget and move on. It makes me uncomfortable to be so important to someone who I have never met.

I sincerely hope to meet a good chunk of you at the National, and to mend some of the past offenses.

I thought you were going to say there are a few people in this forum you "haven't" offended .

[mr2686]

Originally Posted by Runscott

It's tough avoiding the temptation to 'win' discussions in an internet forum - most fail (to avoid the temptation), and I certainly include myself in that group. When this happens, all you can do is apologize and move on. There are a few people in this forum who I have offended at one time or another, and who have refused to forget and move on. It makes me uncomfortable to be so important to someone who I have never met.

I sincerely hope to meet a good chunk of you at the National, and to mend some of the past offenses.

I find that fences get mended pretty darn quick when you're buying the first few rounds!

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Where the heck did that come from? He said "God given rights" - that could be any god of any religion. If you have such a problem with someone believing that there is a god, you should move to Seattle.

Why does it have to be a god at all? Why does a god have to intrude into the discussion?

To answer your question, where my comment came from is my frustration at seeing a discussion of board policies degenerate into a religious statement that was used to close out the discussion by, in essence, telling anyone who disagrees with the concept of a god-given right that he is wrong. The problem I had with that statement is not that Clayton believes in god--though that is the canard that the religious often resort to when confronted with the intellectual problems of the belief-based underpinnings of their arguments as to secular issues--but that he asserted a so-called natural set of rights which he postulated derive directly from a divine being as the basis for his intellectual position in a discussion of what subjects should be allowed to be discussed on a baseball card chat board.

As for your commentary, first, I am not sure what Seattle did to merit your apparent disdain--I've never been there--but I guess I can take your word for it that it somehow sucks sufficiently to serve as a destination for people with whom you disagree. Just how bad is Seattle? Are you saying that all non-believers are to be concentrated in Seattle? To what purpose or end, if I might ask, should we be exiled to that terrible place? Surely, it cannot be just to prevent us from posting on N54; although I've not been there, I assume that Seattle has internet service and people who live there could in theory post to N54? Is that wrong? Can anyone from Seattle stand up, JoJo Who style, and let us know that a person's a person, no matter how Seattle-based?

Setting that issue aside, yours is an interesting and [in my view] logically challenged position to take. What you wrote in essence is that if I do not believe in god I have to go to a place that you presumably find distasteful or unwholesome. If that is not what you meant to write, by all means please clarify your position. If, however, I have accurately deconstructed your statement, then I have to ask whether you also agree that I can with equal validity hold the opposite view, namely that if you have a problem with someone not believing in religions or gods maybe you should move to somewhere like Tehran? If my suggesting that you go to Tehran because you are not an atheist is a problematic concept for you to swallow, perhaps you should rethink your statement.

[Runscott]

Adam, this is two posts in a row where you responded to a straw man of your own creation; thoroughly, it's true, and I anxiously wait your straw man's reply.

(are you going to create a forum membership for him?)

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Adam, this is two posts in a row where you responded to a straw man of your own creation; thoroughly, it's true, and I anxiously wait your straw man's reply.

(are you going to create a forum membership for him?)

Wrong, again, Scott. It is three

[cyseymour]

Adam does make a decent point - natural law is natural, not theological. So the natural rights wouldn't be God-given.

"even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." - Hugo Grotius

This is an important distinction because it serves to prevent human rights abuses against non-believers or primitive peoples. So natural law must derive from the natural world, and our natural state as human beings, not from God.