[Sabertooth]

Yes, I suppose there is room within these immigration threads for reason-based persuasion one-on-one. That has happened and will continue to happen. But as was also true regarding the campaign finance, Patriot Act, and Medicare prescription drugs debacles, you must also expect bald and loud cries of dismay and anguish. Is there any good that can come of these? I believe there is.

So do I, and I don't believe we're alone in that.

This isn't intended as an effort to neutralize passion on the issue of Illegals, it's an attempt to abate the gratuitous and insincere viciousness that occurs far too often, and make the debate accessible to more posters who aren't interested in wading through circle-jerk flame wars in the Smokey Backrrom.

I think there's plenty of latitude for vigorous debate on these threads.

Will mistakes be made? Probably.

Will I make mistakes? Almost certainly.

But it's time to make a sincere effort at doing things differently, to my eye.

[Howlin]

This is one of the fairest and most thought out posts I've seen in my almost five years at FR.

My hats off to you.

[Kevin Curry]

Short of direct incitements to immediate violence, or posts made dishonestly and in bad faith for the express purpose of causing damage, I would restrict no comments made on these threads. I'm not saying the PsTB are in error for doing so. The owner ought to set and enforce the rules. I am saying that I will never do what you are attempting to do: seeking to distill a consensus around a nucleus of supposed influential posters to indirectly marginalize voices that might strike me as loud and crude.

There have been extremely vicious posts made attacking me over the years. I have never once hit the abuse button. Ad hominems? I simply ignore them.

Again, I believe there is a value--a good--that can be discerned in expressions of honestly-held anger and deep frustration. I would not seek to coerce angry and frustrated posters to satisfy some Rodney King-style plaintive PC-squeak: "Can't we all just get along?"

Occasionally, we can't. Occasionally Bush and Rove need to know they have rocked the chair onto the cat's tail, and the cat is in no mood to dispassionately discuss the finer points of the physics and placement of fulcrum points.