Topband: Is banning really necessary?

[Tom W8JI]

I hope Tree and everyone else doesn't mind one measured response to this:

> In a free society the mere idea of banning people just because we disagree 
> with them goes against our principles of liberty and freedom.  As long as 
> there is civil discourse on an issue, how does that not enlighten the 
> debate?

Part of the problem is some of us have never learned, or have forgotten, 
what a personal attack is. I believe this is because at every level of our 
interaction, from the highest levels of our Government to people on the 
street, we are inundated with nasty personal remarks in any disagreement.

This does one of two things:

1.) It sometimes tends to force a person into not agreeing with the 
offensive person, and wanting to embarrass them to teach them a lesson.

2.) It makes the other person just give up and go away, because they don't 
want to waste time trying to weed through all the nasty remarks just to get 
to the meaningful point of a disagreement.

A percentage of people, generally limited to those who cannot actually grasp 
or understand the problem, or who have no interest in solving a problem, 
consider the scoring of nastiness as "points" or "street cred". The  winner 
of "street cred" often drives the disagreeing people away, and gets credit 
from people who cannot follow or understand the problem and explanations for 
being correct.

Usually the personal habitual demeaning of the other person(s) is 
accompanied by several "I'm so great" statements. This is a way to elevate 
one's self beyond question or debate by others, and gain street cred with 
those who cannot or do not fully understand the problem.

If we openly and honest examine our society, we find we are inundated every 
day with the right to be bullies, nasty, and/or stubborn, and generally 
unhelpful to each other and the population as a whole. The general excuse 
for this behavior are the rights of the bully to be a bully, rather than 
having a polite, honest, frank, debate of the disagreement absent name 
calling and/or self-puffery.

I think this growing social behavior of the right to insult and demean and 
elevate ourselves and our "rights" at the expense of what is good for our 
society as a group is what has locked our Government up,  ruins the Internet 
as a learning tool, and at the root of the increasing violence in our 
country. We all learn and mimic what we see around us every day, that's why 
nuns are in Convents and nudists are in colonies.

Some people are so over the top they are constantly thrown off multiple 
reflectors and Internet forums. It is always someone else's fault, a 
conspiracy, and it is almost always portrayed as a denial of their right to 
disagree with others. They fail to examine and understand themselves 
personally as much as they fail to examine and understand how things really 
work in the sciences.

In light of the way our country and the world is going, I think it is a good 
time to stop accepting nasty social interactions, that others see and 
repeat, as a "right".

73 Tom