People who know me know that I’m a big fan of open discussion.  I think that the more viewpoints that get thrown into the pot, the more obvious the truth becomes.

However, we do need commenters to respect all of the members of this community.

People who know me also know that I love to swear.  I find nothing morally apprehensible about speaking emphatically.

However, I have chosen not to do so in excess here.

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut (Hocus Pocus, 1990), “...profanity and obscenity entitle people who don’t want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.”

I hate rules.  I hate them.  But because I care about the people (from all different walks and traditions) in this community, we’re going to lay out some rules.

Racism will not be tolerated.  If anyone would like to discuss race, I’d love that.  It’s a complicated and curious issue that needs explored.  Different races and cultures exist, but derogatory remarks are not appropriate.

Sexually explicit comments will be deleted.  Coarse joking is something that I find morally apprehensible.  Comments of a derogatory sexual nature will be considered threatening statements and will be removed.

Please control profanity.  Sometimes swearing can show your resolve and add emphasis to a statement, but excessive and unnecessary profanity will be removed.

We don’t edit comments, ever.  At least not before this week, but that won’t happen in the future.

I want people to say what they feel, how they feel it, and I don’t want to run the risk of unintentionally changing someone’s message by editing out their profanity.  The safest way to go about this is to protect the person’s opinion by completely deleting the comment.

So please note:  by violating these rules you are giving full license to us to remove your comment, thereby voluntarily relinquishing your right to express your opinion.

I don’t care what you say on this website, we have made a choice to expose ourselves to an open forum.  You can argue, you can disagree with what I say, you can say I’m stupid.  In fact, I encourage it.  But you must say it in a way that respects your audience.

For the time being, we still will not require comments to be approved before they go active.  Comments will be posted to the site immediately, because it’s important to us that members of our community can speak and discuss in real time.

So if you see an unwise comment, please know that we’ll remove it as soon as we find it. Feel free to tell us about it using our contact form.

Thanks for your understanding.