Shahab on soap - thoughts on censorship

["Shahab Mesbah" <meteor2@moscow.com>]

My dearest friends,

I fully understand the feeling some of the friends have when confronted with
unjust and inappropriate posts in this forum. I understand the need to be a
champion of justice and not put up with false accusations and abuse.

the founders of our country based the structure of it on some fundamental
ideas that were designed to save us from ourselves. now, I am not one to
follow old rules just for the halibut (get it... for the halibut!) so I have
thought deeply about the pro/con of most of our societies norms. as I see it
not only do we have to allow free speech for the benefit of free flowing of
ideas... we also have to allow it for our own benefit. an open mind is one
that examines every opinion (including one's own) constantly. we may think
we have the concept figured out but suddenly someone gives you a fact or
perspective that drastically changes your view. this is the spirit of
learning and cooperation I have been speaking of. we are all in a process of
flux; we are all learning and going through the maze of life. we feel
strongly about some things and rarely think about other things. as we
develop as human beings our priorities change and the people we meet effect
us with their views and opinions... it is a process of growth. this growth
involves positive and negative experiences. if we do not allow others to
challenge our way of life... if we try to limit the speech of others... even
abusive speech, we would be limiting our own growth.

it is part of our personal growth to learn not to be confrontational. it is
also our goal to be able to respond well to confrontational people. it is
our goal to be better judges of truth. it is our goal to champion justice.
all this takes practice... if you never have people cuss you out you will
never develop the clarity of mind to deal with it; you will never learn to
find the underlying problem within the conflict and thus you will never
learn to dissipate conflict with love and fellowship.

I sincerely believe that tribulations make us a better person. in my view,
we should open the gates of communication wide open and be an open society.
we have dealt with the problems in vision2020 very effectively. we have
controlled the conversations and directed them towards more positive
dialogue. we are, all of us, the governing body of this forum. when I look
back a few months I see great improvement in the quality of the posts. I see
friends discussing things with increasing control and open mind. now, if we
could get more people to join in the conversations we would get even
further.

I truly hope that from this forum flows a stream of ideas and guidelines for
our local government to follow. I hope that we mature and grow to represent
a wider variety of views and people. we really need to have more people in
our group. The more diversity, more views, and more thoughts we incorporate
into our discussions the more fruitful we will be.

your brother in arms,

Shahab...

Shahab Mesbah
Technical Director
Meteor Light Labs
Voice (208) 883-9765
Fax (208) 883-2678
www.meteorlabs.com