It should have read,
Moderation in pursuit of civility is no vice
Paul Finkelman wrote:
To paraphrase Barry Goldwater,
Moderation in the pursuit of civility is not vice.
Paul Finkelman
Volokh, Eugene wrote:
At times, people have admonished me for not being ideologically
evenhanded in my attempts to keep things polite and calm. Those who
have done so may well have been correct, at least in some instances -- I
try to be fair on such matters, but of course it's much easier to see
rhetorical excess in people you disagree with than in people you agree
with. Nonetheless, I thought I'd say a few words on this.
1. Precisely because all of us (myself included) find it easier
to see flaws in our adversaries than in our friends, it's easy to see a
moderator's actions as unbalanced even if they're pretty fair.
2. Few subscribers keep really close track of all the
admonitions that I've posted, and no subscribers know all the
admonitions that I've sent to people off-list.
3. I don't always read everyone's posts equally carefully; much
depends on how busy I am with other things, how interested I am in the
thread, and the like. There'll therefore be some randomness that might
yield results that appear biased even if they aren't.
4. Rhetorically excessive posts are bad for both sides of the
debate, and may actually be worse for the poster's side than for the
side that he's criticizing.
5. If you think that I'm not restraining one side's excesses
enough, don't just stand there -- speak up yourself (though politely, I
hope). Such occasional nudges from list members may be even more
effective than nudges from the list custodian.
Eugene
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--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK 74105
918-631-3706 (voice)
918-631-2194 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
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Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
