Quoth Brian Holtz: ----- What Brian Holtz quoted was the dictionary definition of 'censor' -----
Everyone has bad habits. One of yours is quoting "a" dictionary definition of something, then blithely pretending that what you just quoted was "the" dictionary definition of that thing. Sometimes what you leave out is at least as important as what you include. For example, with respect to the word "censor," you leave out the fact that from the very beginning, the word referred to compulsory/coercive action by government (it was the title given to two Roman officials who "supervised public morals"), and that it has always meant that except in some rarefied areas of leftist and conspiracy-theory dogma where it is asserted that a quasi-state phenomenon of similar effect exists (i.e "the capitalists [or Zionists, or alien collaborators] control the media"). If you're going to assert such a dogma, I'd be interested in seeing the entire dogma, not just one of its applications. If you want to bandy dictionary definitions, WordNet's first definition for the verb form of "censor" is "forbid the public distribution of." Under that definition, the moderators' activities at lpradicals don't even come close to "censorship," since there exist at least thousands, and probably hundreds of thousands, of other similar venues in which any content one might want to post can be freely posted, including one provided by the same group, and almost of all of which are more "public" than lpradicals itself. Your use of the word "censor" with reference to lpradicals isn't an accurate descriptive usage. Rather, it's an attempt to slip an association fallacy into your argument deck by illicitly broadening a long-established definition. I note that Mr. Cohen has not thus far chosen to post his piece at the lpradicals-discuss list, which is not moderated. From that, I can reasonably deduce that his purpose is not so much to have the piece read as to be able to falsely squawk (or have you falsely squawk on his behalf) about non-existent "censorship." Regards, Tom Knapp
