SatanLucy

"If you defend everything, you defend nothing." - Art of War

I would say this claim in a different way:

"If you try to solve all problems, you solve none."

I guess this is what taoism means when saying that thinking too much is harmful. "today, rulers rule with clever ideas, and the nations are cursed."

Helz is just female version of Grateful.

I dont really see anyone else other than her and Grateful making arguments that Europe will sue this site because someone said drunk drivers are worse than rapists.

Is it possible Europe sues this site? Sure it is. Anyone can sue anyone for anything. Saudi Arabia could sue site for insulting Islam, which is also a crime in a lot of Europe. China or North Korea could sue site for insulting Communism. A lot of Europe and some other countries could sue the site on the basis of trans misgendering which some users do.

So yeah, I am looking forward to see how someone makes a debate site which respects laws of all countries in the world. I am guessing the only debates which remain possible will be "Is ocean a soup?".

I am not going to respond to all your yapping because it would take too much time on my part, however I will just correct the most obvious false statement:

"By their own words they go out of their way to rage bait and cause harm"

I dont remember Remy ever saying anywhere that he goes out of his way to cause harm. So I am not really sure why would you intentionally lie and make things up.

Rage bait isnt harm. Its just a way to increase response rate. I do rage bait too. Even you are doing rage bait by basically lying about what person said.

"Yep, this is all you’re able to see because this is apparently all your simplistic mind can handle."

No, it was all the arguments you mentioned so far. They were all based on "oh I don't like this waaah".

So yeah, I don't really see what else is there to your argument other than you not liking some posts.

Maybe there are degrees to disliked things, but it's still what your arguments are about.

I am not a crybaby like you, so I don't want to ban people simply because I really don't like what they post. Otherwise, I would argue to ban you.

I agree too. I don't really even know anyone who disagrees or at least strongly argues against it.

People who oppose term limits are usually minority who is at same time neutral on topic mostly.

I assume the only ones who strongly argue against term limits are judges themselves. I can't really imagine anyone else having interest in defending this specific side, other than some politicians maybe who want to gain favor of Supreme Court.

"No genius, the topic is decided by what the conversation was about at the time both participants entered into it."

The topic is really just bunch of people wanting to ban Remy because they don't like what he posts.

That's the topic.

Now, of course, you didn't know what the topic was so I had to educate you about it.

The problem here is really that those who argue in favor of ban seem to be entirely unaware of their own position.

"I’m conversing with two people who are too stupid to even understand that that is the topic at hand"

Well, there are two responses to this. One is that you seem to be living in delusion that you decide the topic in the first place.

The other response is that your post is offensive. It offended my sensitive feelings. So now I gotta ask for your ban so my feelings can heal.

"It's funny how you think Europe is the role model for the world"

Europe is role model only if you hate free speech and freedom, which grateful does.

You can't really take grateful's position seriously. I mean, just look at his vote. He is scared that Europe will arrest him unless he votes to ban you. Guy lives in fear because of Europe. He feels like citizens in North Korea feel. That's life in some parts of Europe.

Well, there is one more guy who is guaranteed to vote Pro, and with that, I think our enemies exhausted their voting pool.

So outcome will be decided by either current result or some votes appearing from those who didn't even yet give opinion on issue.

3 more days. This is getting tense. I really don't know how many more people could vote, but I do hope that free speech wins and this site doesn't turn into tyrannical dictatorship.

"But why will I if this is going to devolve into some reddit shitposting site?"

That still doesn't answer my question: Why didn't you show this much engagement at any other debate comments on this site?

It seems that rage bait works to gain activity, so Remy also gets credit for making other users more active.

I prefer an active community, and yeah, studies say rage bait makes social media more active.

You want "healthy community", and you say Remy has intent to cause harm, which is really nonsense to anyone, but I guess you were hoping rhetoric will win where logic doesn't.

I see that this is the only debate you are even active on, and you made more comments on this debate than on any other.

So rage bait is making you more active. That's good even if you don't understand how it works.

"You want people to be allowed to say anything they want with the burden of behavior placed on everyone else"

This is also a very weird strawman of my position, but whatever makes you happy I guess.

Sure, as I said, you can have your opinion. It's not a problem.

These votes so far are showing that just maybe, free speech will win, so it seems amount of amused people exceeds amount of offended people.

I know it must be entertaining to push for a ban on anyone who offends you, but I never really took that path myself. I prefer being offended, even tho that rarely happens. I don't really see how person can find entertainment without being offended.

However, I am not offended by Remy's posts, so I am afraid this argument about offensive posts only exists in your head.

I don't really even see what's offensive about Remy's posts.

"“not letting other people talk because their words offend you”

Except that, as has already been explained to you, this is not what’s happening"

Oh it is.

Your imagination is sure interesting.

Opinion read and discarded.

they wanted democracy. they got it.

this is what democracy comes down to, endless debating about who is good citizen and who sucks. Reality is that with "democracy" on this site, trials and votes like these are gonna happen a lot.

And given that this is most popular debate in history of this site, I could also add that this democracy is starting to look like site being turned into a mafia game.

Democracy is the best possible system in theory. It only fails in practice.

But maybe, just maybe this trial brings more free speech to the site, and if that happens, then sure, maybe this democracy thing is even good for something.

"I felt that I had very directly addressed the very specific arguments you made"

thats where we disagree, but given our current progress in this conversation, I would rather not continue.

I didnt really think I would ever have to explain this to anyone, but here we are.

Disagreeing on a definition of "free speech" does nothing. Its literally irrelevant to my argument. I could have made exactly same argument without ever mentioning words "free speech", because the argument isnt based on definition of free speech, but rather on language primitive such as "not letting other people talk because their words offend you".

So yeah, I am afraid whatever you thought you would achieve by challenging definition of "free speech" was more like homeless man yelling at cloud because he lost a penny.

"No genius. If you would have bothered to read the entire sentence then you’d have noted the second half of it: “ …in actual real life as it has been used for centuries now”. Crazy that I have to explain this, but teaching you the historical usage of a word =/= teaching you your own opinion."

Oh, so your argument is irrelevant to mine. My bad.

Also, most studies show that rage bait and offensive content actually drive up activity on social media.

So yeah, you can ban all rage bait, but then this site likely dies because it lacks something which all other social media rely on to increase activity.

"Consider if this site was a restaurant"

Well, it isn't.

Given that you are not responding to any of my arguments made, I really don't see point in your response.

"Now if you’d like for me to teach you what the real phrase means"

So you want to teach me what my opinion is?

That's amazing. I admire debaters such as you. Not only that you tell others what your opinion is, you also tell them what theirs is!

Great job! You truly showed me.

I mean, Remy literally produces more engagement on this site than 99% of other users. Even this debate had more comments and more votes than any other debate.

Whether the witch hunters want to admit or not, Remy is actually making site way more active than it would be.

Again, you don't really know what free speech is, and claiming it's irrelevant is just your opinion which I already discarded, or to be more precise, never accepted to begin with.

Maybe free speech is irrelevant to you. To me, its a basis of my moral framework, a basis which has served me good.

"Should the action taken by this Applebee's staff be to hand out ear plugs and tell everyone else not to be offended or to address my inappropriate behavior?"

There are three problems with this argument. One is that it's a slippery slope. Another is that, yes this site already has a button to hide offensive posts, so whoever sees Remy's posts is literally choosing to see them. Third problem is that Remy produces a lot more engagement on this site than most other people, so banning him is actually harmful to site's activity a lot more than banning someone who rarely posts.

Why I say it's a slippery slope?

Because once you enter a debate, you are already admitting free speech of your opponents. You don't get to pick and choose which of your opponents have right to talk and which not.

Today it's a ban on offensive content. Tomorrow it will be ban on controversial topics. Day after, it will be ban on anything masses choose bothers them.

The problem is, once you think reducing free speech is acceptable, there is no telling how much of free speech will be lost, or if all cases of reducing free speech will even be just, or just whim of popular opinion.

It's why I Bring examples in Europe, such as law on offending religious feelings, and laws which ban debating holocaust, or laws which ban debating on Islam.

Once you step over that line and start thinking that free speech should be reduced for whatever reasons you think at the moment, the line of thinking will guide you into banning a lot more than you want to ban right now. You would also have to ban misgendering, religious offensive parodies, even offensive jokes.

"Well consider the difference between murder and manslaughter"

Neither of those is choice of person being harmed by them.

Same way here. I don't get offended by Remy's posts. People who do are just those who choose to be. Despite that we all read same posts, the ones who are offended by them are just choosing to be.

In fact, I don't even see why should someone read Remy's posts if it bothers them so much.

On a debate site, some people are gonna be offended. There is no way around that.

Doesn't matter if it's being offended by losing a debate, or being offended by hearing argument they strongly disagree with, or way in which argument is presented.

Reality is, there are bunch of Remy-like people out there. If we ban Remy, it doesn't ban just Remy. It sets a principle to ban a lot more people.

Site which is as tiny as ours really can't afford to be picky.

As for free speech, free speech is necessary for debates, and any reduction in free speech also reduces debates which depend on that free speech.

When you step into a debate, you are already admitting your opponent has right of free speech. So when you step into debate Remy, you are already admitting the principle you are denying.

It is impossible to have debate if people can't exchange arguments, and reducing that exchange only reduces debating itself.

Further, my defense of free speech is that violating free speech for subjective reasons is always gonna be self-contradiction, because subjective reasons can justify anything.