I didn't bother sending this when I originally wrote it, since Beau Cain embarrassed you enough by enthusiastically quoting <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OutrightLibertarians/message/3313> on the Outright forum most of the message from me that you had just censored there. But now that you're censoring me again, please forward this in full to the relevant Outright body of appeal.
Outright moderator Allan Wallace wrote: A) One of the two things that qualifies a member of this Yahoo Group for Moderation is personal attacks on another member. After an offensive personal comment is made, a warning usually goes out, but is not required. When the number of attacks reaches 2, Moderation is automatic. (A Except, it seems, when the attacked person is me. Brian Miller wrote on Nov <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OutrightLibertarians/message/3189> 29: "Brian Holtz's perspectives on gay issues are as enlightening (and relevant) as my perspectives on how to pleasure a woman and raise children." This implict reference to my wife was crude and offensive, and I of course have never offered "perspective" on anything remotely analogous to gay sexual intimacy. Brian Miller wrote on Dec <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OutrightLibertarians/message/3294> 12: "I don't indulge Holtz. It is amusing when a straight white guy in suburbia lectures a queer activist on gay stuff, but there's only so much of the amusement I can take, and I've got concrete policy to talk about. Holtz has demonstrated virtually no knowledge of any of the legislation in question [...] And when you assign authority to the arguments of a queer-policy-ignorant straight guy on the issue, it descends even further -- to the absurd." This was a blatant attempt to belittle me because of my demographic status and sexual orientation. Further, the claims about "lecture on gay stuff" and "virtually no knowledge of the legislation" were demonstrably false. For example, Miller has yet to respond to my repeated correction of his claim that 10 <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html> U.S.C. ยง <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html> 654 <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html> (the Don't Ask Don't Tell law) automatically applies to anyone "caught in any gay event or venue". Instead, he just repeats his Big Lie ad nauseam about my alleged ignorance regarding gay-related legislation. And according to your standards, repeating a known falsehood does not count as a personal attack, but diagnosing it does. That's simply Orwellian. Brian Miller wrote on Dec <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OutrightLibertarians/message/3309> 13: "Sadly, James, Mr. Holtz is engaging in the sort of 'you gays' rhetoric with you that characterizes so much of some LPers' attitudes towards gay folks." This was yet another falsehood. I have NEVER EVER attempted to characterize as homogenous the political views of gays, or of gay libertarians, or even of the Outright Libertarians. This was blatant and unsubstantiated mendacity about me, and you denied me the ability to correct it. Do you think Miller's statement about me is true, or do you just not care whether it's false? A) If a member has a problem with the moderation he or she has received, that member is free to appeal the Moderator's decisions to the Executive Committee of Outright Libertarians who may order the Moderator to take some action for or against the member, or may replace the Moderator as he serves at their will. (A I hereby so appeal. I stand by EVERY WORD I've written about Miller, and I can substantiate it and document it in full detail. You or Miller can pick whatever you consider my most egregious offense was, and I'll stand by it 100%. Is truth not a defense among the Outright Libertarians? Does being an Outright officer mean Miller can issue personal attacks in violation of your stated policies to an audience of 150 Libertarians, and any attempt to rebut and accurately characterize those attacks is ruled as automatically worthy of censorship? Is this 1984? A) NOTE: Outright Libertarians is our name. The organization as a whole is sometimes referred to as Outright and sometimes abbreviated as "OL". But, our members are never referred to as "Outrights". If you really had the close relationship you claim to have with some of our members, you would know this. (A Are you seriously disputing my invocation of Beau Cain and Mark Johnson and Rich Newell and Starchild as character witnesses for me? Do you really think I would publicly name them like I have if I had the slightest doubt that they would vouch for my integrity? My work with them has been in the context of the LPCA, not the OL. A) BTW: Within a minority, language that would be unacceptable in general society is acceptable between members of the same minority. When anyone outside that minority tries to use that language it is almost always deemed offensive. (A If "Outrights" is not what OL members call eath other, then what "language" of mine is this advisory in reference to? Do you seriously imagine that I thought the term "Outrights" was analogous to (say) "niggas" and was trying to appropriate it? A) Answering a nearly-offensive statement with a clearly-offensive statement is not appropriate, it is not equal-time, and it is not an acceptable way to rebut commentary on this group. (A Miller belittled me for my demographics and sexual orientation, and made an oblique reference to my intimate relations with my wife. By contrast, my only "crime" was simply to accurately characterize and document the deliberate falseness of some of Miller's statements. I linked to my unrebutted Oct 3 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OutrightLibertarians/message/3120> message on Outrights, which irrefutably documented an unretracted lie by Miller about me. Is the truth of my characterization not an adequate defense for it? Is demonstrable lying about someone's positions not considered a personal attack? Can you read my Oct 3 message and dare claim I didn't document Miller issuing multiple lies about me? Do you dare claim that whether Miller in fact lied about me is not relevant to the question of whether me characterizing such lies for what they are constitutes a "personal attack"? Do the Outright Libertarians require the truthful to practice unilateral disarmament when being lied about? A) Claiming reverse discrimination will get you NOWHERE, unless it is obvious to more members of this group than just you. (A What part of "straight white guy in suburbia" is not obviously an attempt at reverse discriminaton? The only part of Angela Keaton's standard reverse-bigotry that Miller ommitted was "computer nerd", but that's presumably because Millier is some sort of "hightechfella". Keaton and Miller are hardly the only prominent LP leaders complaining loudly about the demographics of the party and trying gamely, bless their hearts, to belittle people like me. By contrast, you can't name a single LP leader who complains there are too many gays in the party. A) Brian Miller is a capable wordsmith and moderated himself just enough to come under our radar for moderation, barely. (A LOL. See the record above. A) Cross-posting to and from other groups will increase your chances of being moderated, edited, or having your post rejected. Why? Because it is extremely inconsiderate. (A You're apparently referring to my practice of cc'ing my political correspondence to my (uncensored) Yahoo group for archiving (and distribution to a small set of masochists who care to monitor what I write). That cc'ing has never once brought a response onto the Outright list from a member of my list not already on yours. I could bcc my list, but I consider it far more inconsiderate to furtively criticize someone on a forum without them knowing it than to tacitly invite them to cc their responses to that forum and let them decline if they so choose. But then again, I'm peculiar in that I believe in a free and fair contesting of ideas... A) If you want to make side comments to individuals, make those comments directly to them, do not send personal e-mail to the entire group. (A I take it you're referring to my side comment to Tom Knapp. In case you didn't know, he's the chief spokesperson for one of the two leading contenders for the LP presidential nomination. My comment related to him would clearly have been appropriate in that context if made in the third person, but I happen to know he's one of the aforementioned masochists, and so I used the second person. If your indictment of me needed padding with this picayune complaint, that doesn't say much for your indictment. :-) A) OL was founded to be a Niche organization at the junction of Libertarian Party politics and the GLBTQ community. Expecting us to have a broad view of Paul within our niche is futile. As leaders of Outright Libertarians we would fail our members and supporters to take any broad view that contradicts our reason for existing. (A Wow, that's quite an admission, and I doubt that the rest of the OL leadership would endorse it. My position remains that gay rights are a very mainstream issue, and that if it were factually correct that Ron Paul is a "homophobic bigot" and openly hostile to gay rights, then the "broad view of Paul" would necessarily be that he is unlibertarian and destructive to our movement. (Rob Power publicly disputed than anyone of the OL had called Paul a "homophobic bigot". When I quoted Miller doing so, the response has been dead silence.) A) If you accept all this as friendly advise about how to reach Outright Libertarians with your message, and put it into practice, and you will be removed from moderation after a few good posts. (A My "message" on the OL forum is simply to characterize and correct demonstrably false statements about me. Is that allowed, or not? A) Continue as you have and (with the Executive Committee's prior approval) I will bar you from the group. (A Are you saying that your EC has already decided that I'm not allowed to characterize and correct demonstrably false statements about me on the OL forum? Shouldn't the EC decide instead to have Miller use his wordsmithing wizardry to embarrass me for characterizing him in ways that the EC apparently thinks I can't substantiate (or simply doesn't care whether I can substantiate)? Or has the EC calculated that it can throw my personal reputation "under the bus" for the sake of whatever good that Miller does for OL?
