Jesse Hajicek

If you want to know more about the situation at CF, there are two fascinating threads at Internet Infidels.

It says a lot about the police state mentality of CF that you have to go to an atheist site to have a meaningful discussion of how a Christian message board should be run.

Who here posts at CF?
What were you charged with?

Both of these are fairly interesting. There's some much older threads with names like "CF Outcasts" which grew to a thousand posts or so and got closed. A lot of very interesting discussion.

Underneath it all... This is a problem of dodgy foundations making for a crappy structure. There are a lot of very good people at CF, but the structure encourages abuses, and makes it hard for the good people to identify the abuses by the... Well, honestly, often by the people who are pretty good, too, but have a weak spot. Power corrupts. The environment of aggressive secrecy makes it much, much, worse.

BTW, I got a warning reversed.

CaDan/rigorist/steve checking in...
"I don't have a sound bite, unfortunately, or a slogan, which does tend to make an idea hard to spread, but isn't that kind of the point?"

It's kind of about making your own slogans. Those are the only ones you can live with.

Forgive me, I'm going to ramble a little. A lot, actually. This is stuff I wrote at Denny's and need to put somewhere, just to get it out. It's sort of a response, sort of... just rambling.
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So I've got a moral dilemma. On the one hand, there's a fairly solid possibility that I can get a job in Ireland and get out of here while the getting is good. I can leave, get to somewhere that doesn't have near as many religious bigots who hate the very fact that people like me exist, away from psychotic authority freaks who want power to force their agenda on everyone in the whole world. Sounds good, right?
On the other hand, leaving the country right now feels like I'm running away, giving up when I should be staying to fight and trying to fix this place up. After all, this is MY country - as Mark Twain said, not "right or wrong", but "when right, to kept right, when wrong, to be set right". I ought to be trying to wake people up and make them see everything that's wrong with hatred, intolerance, bigotry, imperialism, and tyranny. There's so many people trying to do this already that it seems almost treasonous to just run away and leave them to fight alone.
But what can I really do? Bush was elected and the anti-gay amendments were passed by solid majorities. People are ruled by TV and the major commercial media, and fringe opinions reach hardly anyone who isn't convinced already of their validity. People like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier are in jail. Any attempt at a revolution would not only be unsuccessful, but bring further repression and crackdowns, and the media wouldn't even give it fair coverage. A John Brown today would be reviled for a terrorist and not a single voice in the mainstream press would dare suggest that he might have been right. And yet... shouldn't I do what is right, without caring whether or not I'll succeed or what the consequences to me might be? But if it makes things worse for everyone else, instead of better, is it really the right thing to do? How do I reach out to people and change their hearts and minds when they are truly convinced of their own righteousness nd truly believe that God wants them to oppress and destroy in His name?
Let me talk a bit about myself. I'm an agnostic, and more or less an atheist. I'm an anarchist. I believe that there are actions that are right and actions that are wrong, regardless of whether or not God exists, and that while God can make a supererogatory action obligatory, or command or forbid a morally neutral action, even He cannot make goodness wrong or badness right. (This is not to deny His omnipotence if He exists, it is merely pointing out that omnipotence does not mean the power to create a contradiction.) I believe that government is not inherently necessary for order and organisation, that corporations and bosses are not inherently necessary for production and trade, and that the first use of force - indeed, any use of force other than legitimate defense of self or others against force - is always and everywhere immoral. No kings, no bishops, no bosses, no wars!
So in between the depression and anger at the results of the election, and the selfdoubt and questioning I've been feeling as a result of that, I've been reading WAY more Transmetropolitan than is probably good for me. I SO want to be a Filthy Assistant. The courage to find the truth and tell it, no matter what - I WANT that. Where do I find it, and where do I find an audience. I want to stop being silent and indifferent.

Wannabe Magical Truthsaying Bitch,
Mallory