I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners. These demands for a false front of…
Category: civil discourse
Argumentative
Over the joyous holiday season, I’ve had time to think about some less-than-joyous things. I hate getting into arguments. It makes my heart sink to get into yet another argument. Some days, I just don’t want to check the blogs I read because I fear that there will be a…
Overlapping Cultural Mormon Perspectives
Faithful Mormons often imagine that those commenting on Mormonism from outside their circle form one monolithic block of “antis”. Mormon culture encourages this view, so people are often surprised when they read the discussion on the Internet and find that the people who disbelieve Mormonism occasionally agree with the Mormons…
Self-expression in a society
Andrew pointed out the irony of Gary Lawrence’s advice to “just be yourself” (reported here): Gary’s son being himself (gay) + Gary being himself (raging homophobe) = family catastophe. As backwards as it is to call Proposition 8 “pro-family,” Lynnette explains that it’s disingenuous to pretend that gay marriage has…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Afterglow Edition!
What a beautiful Sunday morning! Actually it’s kind of cold and cloudy in Zürich, but I’m feeling warm rays of love coming in from all over Outer Blogness, as people post their personal photos and experiences from yesterday’s marches for equality. From Utah, from Seattle, from Hawaii, from Chicago. (Actually…
Peaceful Protest and Civil Dialog
Today is the day for (U.S.) nationwide demonstrations for equality (see Join the Impact). A number of our friends here in Outer Blogness have been covering the protests live, such as John R. at the Irvine protest, and many others I gathered up last Sunday in Outer Blogness. Chino has…
Free expression basics, and LDS newsroom meme
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions…