(December 16, 2008 at 2:18 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: The ban on Daystar is too restrictive to my taste. Stubborn behaviour and hard headedness can't be enough reason to ban someone. That behaviour is how the person portrays himself on the forum open and plain, for everybody to see. When you don't want to respond to the same rhetoric anymore, just don't or put him on your ignore list. I think it is the wrong choice on the issue of free speech. If on a forum dedicated to atheism free speech is restricted like this, then where can we truly find free speech?
In my view the right to freedom of speech is fine but it also implies responsibility (all rights do) the primary one being that if you possess a given right (such as freedom of speech) then you are expected to guarantee other's that very same right. In a forum that is essentially dedicated to debate however I believe things change a bit, there is an implied responsibility that if you claim something that is not self-evident (generally accepted) or is indefensible you must defend that POV or withdraw the assertion, furthermore if you are called on a given point you must be prepared to defend it or accept the possible consequences.
That's just the way I see it but it seems to me that, if these things aren't so, you risk total anarchy which kinda makes the place pointless.
Kyu