Recently a post was removed from this blog due to objectionable material. The author will be named by nick only on his approval. The poster is a fellow-chatter, influential in the direction of #gayportland, an articulate and thoughtful individual, and one whom i consider a friend…. One of whom i expected more on this occasion.
I went to some length in chat to express to him my opinion that the youtube post was a page out of the right-wing play book, a hatchet job typical of rove-esque tactics, and the kind of anti-intellectual sleaze promoted on any random obama-bashing site in the blogosphere. When the request for deletion of the youtube link was declined, it was removed by management (yeah, in this case, me). On suggestion of the poster, the post was then removed.
He was encouraged to express his anti-Obama position in original words, which he is eminently capable of doing, in lieu of using our fair blog to promote a mindless video guffawed over by good ol’ boys on return from their saturday night dog fight. He declined again.
Authorship (the ability to post in addition to add comment) on this blog, is granted with the same consideration that ops is extended on #gayportland. Both are held to a higher standard…. with power, if you must, comes responsibility. And both are retained by the author in question.
I am well aware of the slippery slope potential that looms in the discussion and reality of “censorship.” Tomes have been written on the matter, and i will not attempt to expand the literature in this post. Suffice it to say that this blog will maintain its identity as a forum for free-expression within the context of the gay “community” and a furtherance of the dalliances enchatted on #gayportland. It will not become a venue for the recycling of right-wing propaganda videos that proliferate on lesser if more popular blogs whose purpose is not to stimulate thought, but to fester ignorance in a pustule of fear.
Cheered I am by the knowledge that he is capable of better, as witnessed by his fine libertarian blog at http://nwfreethinker.blogspot.com/ , which includes his thoughts on the subject at hand. No, dear, you are not a bad person:)