Do me this dignity, a final word

[emprworm]

I know that i'm not welcome here and I honor the fact that I'm banned from this forum (banned last night after just 2 posts following a 3 year break).  As someone who has made thousands of posts here and has spent countless hundreds of hours with people in this community, all I am asking is that you allow me to at least make this post to state my point of view.  I was never given a chance to speak.  I was simply banned.  I will not return, and I understand that a mod will probably delete this post as well.  But for those who are curious as to what happened to me, I have a full summary on my dune site.

www.songwave.com/dune

you can read what happened.

as for the ameriphobic mods here who are too timid to permit empassioned differing opinions, i will leave you to yourselves.  I can see you have a nice bubble community here and do not want anyone to ruffle your feathers.

to those who know me and understand that I am a decent human being, I just wanted to say hi and hope that your doing well, and that your life has turned out to be the person you hoped to be.  Its been a long time, I still have fond memories years ago of very intelligent debating and playing a great game.

peace out everyone. remember that unless someone has the freedom to speak an offensive view point, there will never really be freedom

[Acriku]

We've had our share of fiery exchanges, but I always enjoyed debating with you empr. Sorry it had to turn out like that, but I do think you are a very decent person and hope you're doing well, too.

[Andrew]

I enjoyed your trivia thread back in the day.

Didn't think your post warranted banning, but I'm not a supermod and is not up to me.

You were just voicing your opinion. Much like I know Bush sucks as president.

Also, Islam is a religion of peace. Where were you 5 years ago yesterday? They were just showing their affection for us. Also Christianity is a religion of peace. When they bomb abortion clinics they are just showing their affection.

Both are done in the name of a "God".

Cheers!

Andrew

[Edric O]

It was always fun debating with you, Emprworm, though your writing style was always... well, slightly more oriented towards emotional impact than most people would like, to put it mildly.

I was sometimes guilty of similar things myself, though I believe I have grown older and wiser over the years.

[nemafakei]

Actually, you were placed on a one-day ban, a slap on the wrist which I had thought was in line with other offences by other posters of a similar nature. Actually, having a closer look, it turns out that the closest comparison (not counting Nav) was two days. Ah, well.

However, deliberately creating a secondary account to override a ban (I didn't attempt to block anything but the username, as for some reason I assumed you weren't arrogant enough to evade it) demonstrates that you're not in the least bit interested in following the rules (never mind the fact that you're now publicly grasing for sympathy with laughably fluffy words of reconciliation rather than emailing the mods and either objecting or apologising), and therefore I see no good reason not to extend the ban to permanent. That said, I'm only going to suspend your main account for a week, by which time Gob will hopefully have come by to decide.

From my outbox, for the record:

"Quote: Harassing, threatening, intimidating, or discriminating remarks toward other members will not be tolerated.

If you want to have a reasoned and calm discussion about the merits and faults of islam, go ahead. But calling people subhuman is beyond the pale."

Ultimately, you signed up to the rules as a precondition for posting. If you then break them, you have no grounds for complaint. I'm sure there are places like Stormfront where you can make all the bigoted comments you like, but here, you will either discuss with a modicum of civility - and, make no mistake, you have been uncivil often enough - or you can go elsewhere.

[Dude_Doc]

I think he actually wants to get back. Why else would he return? :D

[Dunenewt]

This is why I don't normally post my views on these forums.  They're quite offensive.

[Andrew]

PS

Here's the latest attempted abortion clinic bomber. (a stupid one at that)

[Gobalopper]

I support Nema's original 1 day ban because of your use of the term "Muslim animals" which I don't think should be used when refering to a group as large and diverse as Muslims. The 7 day ban is because you decided to create a second account which is reasonable as well.

It was good to see you back emprworm but only if you are going to be reasonable.

[nampigai]

I thought this would never come from me - but I tend to agree with emprworm in some of his points regarding islam.

However to me all religion is evil and dominating.

[Mihail]

Now, I wasn't here for what transpired, but I got the general gist of it. Saying something as ignorant and rascist as "Muslim animals", is, I think, enough for an even longer ban. Another thing that extremely irks me is Andrew's use of sarcasm with statements like "Islam is religion of peace. Where were you 5 years ago yesterday? They were just showing their affection for us." Now, I realise you also criticised Christianity in that statement too, but I've seen this happening much more with Islam than with Christianity, so I'm going to address that particular statement about Islam now.

Whether you like it or not, Islam is a religion of peace. If you ever bothered to read the Qur'an, you would realise that harming civilians is considered a heavy sin and especially "Children of the Book" (Christians,and I think, Jews, but don't quote me on the latter), who had to be treated with more respect than others and they, in return, needed only to pay a tax to be able to live on Muslim lands. Now, the ones giving Islam a bad name are the extremist groups and the Muslim counter-parts of people like Ann Coulter. I've sensed alot of simmering, underlying hate against Muslims here, which I think is plain dumb. Yes, there are many illegal immigrants and Muslim gang members, but there are also many Muslim doctors, lawyers and so on and so forth.

This hate is almost exclusively emotional, and emotion clouds judgement heavily. In Latvia there is also an ethnic group that is stereotyped as criminals, drunks and vulgar people in general(I will not say which it is, though), but really has just as many good people as bad. So stop with the emotional hatred, please?

[Andrew]

I was going to post a bit longer post, but it wouldnt help any.

To sum it up: Pretty much what Emprworm said about it's ok to criticize any religion/group of people except when it comes to Islam.

And what I said in Mohammed cartoon thread.

[Cyborg]

Unless it was aimed for a specific person, I wouldn't actually see the reason to ban someone for drawing the link between animals and humans... I trust the moderators here, though, that the ban was made because of more than just that.

[nemafakei]

"I wouldn't actually see the reason to ban someone for drawing the link between animals and humans..."

Somehow, I don't think the phrase "Muslim animals" is meant to be helpfully informing us that followers of Muhammed happen to belong to the Kingdom Animalia...

[Apollyon]

Out of interest, which of the forum rules did emprworm break?

[ordos45]

I don't tend to think of myself as Ameriphobic.  Why?  Well I'm an American first off, second off, I love my nation dearly, and were I to feel someone was a threat to my nation, I would not react kindly to them.  Third, I love this nation's ideals of democracy and freedom, and I know I'm darn proud to actually be allowed to vote at the age of twenty, something my father's generation couldn't do.

I also had nothing to do with your ban (indeed Ghosthunter asked me if I had seen the post in question is what brought it to my attention), however, I feel the short ban was justified.  There are more than a billion Muslims on this planet, and the vast majority are peaceful.  I know a few Muslim friends I love to debate religion with, and we have fun doing so.  While there are radical terrorists, the same can be said of any religion, including your and mine's own, Christianity.

Calling a group people, any group of people, sub-human or animals is unacceptable.  I'm sure Nema would have done the same if you had been referring to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Pagans, Atheists, tall people, short people, homosexuals, etc.  And I further support his one week ban for creating a new account to achieve a final word in the matter, that was extremely childish, and if you had waited a mere day you could have had your say.

Edit:  For Apollyon, even though as I said, I didn't know about this until GH pointed it out.  I'm going to guess the one day ban was for:

Posts that contain one word responses or rude remarks will be deleted.

And the seven was for:

You are only allowed to have one account on the forum.

 

Taken from the Fed2k FAQ.

[Apollyon]

Ah, OK. Still, 'rude remarks' is a bit vague/subjective eh? Perhaps not in this specific case.

I was looking at the Harassing, threatening, intimidating, or discriminating remarks toward other members will not be tolerated one and wondering how that might apply -- but what you said makes sense.

[Cyborg]

Still, it says that making rude remarks will get your post deleted; not your account banned.

That doesn't mean I'm against the action taken, as I'm sure there must have been lots of episodes... Or?

[ordos45]

*shrugs* Like I said, just taking a guess on my part.  Didn't even know it happened until Ghost pointed it out to me.  Nema, given he did the ban, would probably be able to elaborate.

Sorry I can't be of more help guys.

[Edric O]

Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but...

However to me all religion is evil and dominating.

I am willing to bet that your vision of "evil" is fundamentally based on Christian values.

Virtually every single Western atheist that I know - with the exception of some philosophers - has an understanding of good and evil that is based on Christian values (e.g. mercy and compassion are good, harming people for your own gain is evil).

[Cyborg]

I've always thought of it as the other way around...

[Edric O]

The values of the Western world before Christianity - that is, the values of the Roman Empire - were quite different from ours.

[Acriku]

Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but...

I am willing to bet that your vision of "evil" is fundamentally based on Christian values.

Virtually every single Western atheist that I know - with the exception of some philosophers - has an understanding of good and evil that is based on Christian values (e.g. mercy and compassion are good, harming people for your own gain is evil).

How are they Christian values specifically? They seem to be pretty obvious morals, considering the whole evolutionary feeling of empathy we humans have developed. To tack on that they are "Christian" values is very presumptuous and is like saying that "Do not kill" and "Do not steal" are Christian values as well.

[Cyborg]

How are they Christian values specifically? They seem to be pretty obvious morals, considering the whole evolutionary feeling of empathy we humans have developed. To tack on that they are "Christian" values is very presumptuous and is like saying that "Do not kill" and "Do not steal" are Christian values as well.

That's exactly what i think too. The Christians can't take the cred for inventing those values.

[sardcore]

worm you dog drop me a email: incorrigibleson@hotmail.com

banned? now i haven't read the thread that lead to worm's banning, nor have i done any other research whatsoever regarding this incident, but it seems to me that worm uses the term "muslim animals," to refer only to the muslims involved in terrorist activities.  Any person who denies another