Occasionally, I post something worth duplicating onto another blog. This would be one instance and to spare you the extra click, you can read today's agblog entry here...
In my opinion, it is commenting on other people's work and ideas that both challenges and strengthens their positions and arguments. Additionally it is through these challenges that other people are led to make up their own minds about critical issues in the world around us. This leads to a two-fold point on commenting on blogs.
Firstly, it is absolutely vital to comment only with true facts. Too many times there are extremists on either side of the issue who let their feelings get the better of them and then they end up just spouting off a bunch of over-exaggerations which serve only to promote greater intellectual chaos among the new faces to a debate. This is not helpful and can often be even worse than the obvious falsities promoted by extremists in their blogs to start with. If you can't make a point with sure facts and strong arguments, then please don't waste my time by moving your mouth or typing a lot.
Secondly, censored comments have a good ideal at their origin. However, if you over-censor comments such as the Making Hay blog does, then it destroys the point of your article in the first place, that is, if you were actually interested in debate. However, both Wayne Pacelle and Gene Baur have proven time and again that they are not truly interested in debate. It seems that they would rather force their opinion down the throats of intelligent people by first mis-educating the masses about the "truths" that they would like to share about animal agriculture. Is there truth to what they say? Sure, there is some truth to what they say, but not enough.
There must always be truth to something that people will believe, but in a radical rights movement such as theirs, misleading information will propagate their position much quicker and easier than debating facts. The facts would lead too many people to be moderates, thus causing too many people to be willing to work things out between groups. Instead, Pacelle, Baur, and their colleagues use their propaganda to trick people into a much faster ideological movement. The thing about movements is that they run out of time and energy. If you can't find something new to lie about, then you will finally run out of steam. What's amazing is how good HSUS and their groupies have been about coming up with misinformation to keep their groups on the move.
This is where I get back to my second point on commenting. If you have to go to the effort to block my IP address from even loading up the comment option on your blog, doesn't that mean you're scared to discuss the issue with me? It was bad enough when you deleted my comments during the censoring phase, but now you've cut straight to the greater efficiency and stopped me from being able to even submit my comments in the first place.
It's a shame that you're scared of people seeing the other side of an issue. People are smart enough to think for themselves; you don't need to be doing that for them. What's even more shameful is your blatant fear of my comments which have been posted here in my blogs for people to see since they would never be published on your blog. There is no foul language or hate for your organization proposed in my comments; I've even bordered on over-conciliation at times. Yet, you continue to dodge the obviously less-experienced and thus poorer equipped debater of the two of us.
If you're too scared to speak up for what you "believe in", then you'd better find a new cause to support.
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