Your Attention Please [Breaking News and WoD Flamewars]

[Admin Moderator]

Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.

Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible.

We are in one of the not-very time periods.

Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it is

1. Something the networks would interrupt their programming to say,
2. The networks would interrupt their programming to say if they weren't overwhelmingly liberal,
3. Something that honestly would (not should, would) be of interest to majority of self-described conservatives
4. Official chapter announcements

Or things along those lines. Don't consider that a list of rules, but of guidelines. But act as if the guidelines matter, please. And flame the heck out of people that don't. And provide appropriate feedback to people who don't.

Some things that are never breaking news: Stories that have been posted before, stories that are over a day old, opinion vanities, freep this poll, or anything from the op-ed section of any newspaper.

Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):

1. Post a copy of the article to the Smokey Backroom
2. Ping your flamee to that copy.
3. Go to town over there and keep the crap off the main forum.

Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it. The WoD flamewars overwhelm the latest posts page with a neverending sequence of posts that are just mindless insults. Please, spare us, and don't try to put it on the moderators to determine who fired the first shot. There are rarely clean hands here, and no matter what we do one side or another is going to complain.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Freeping. I expect no fewer than 500 taunts at us in the keywords here before this is over. Thank you, and God Bless. ;-)

[Hemingway's Ghost]

As the Admin Moderator stated, neither side's hands are completely clean, and I didn't intend to say that they were. However, as far as I know, flaming the thread was a squelching tactic used by only one side.

I'd love to hear a reasoned, well-intentioned, conservative-based argument in favor of the Drug War. I haven't heard one yet. Come on in and make your case---don't leave it to the Usual Suspects.

[bvw]

And how were those legislative dictas tested in the courts for legitimacy? Many laws are passed, not all pass muster.

[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list ping:

'Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):

'1. Post a copy of the article to the Smokey Backroom
2. Ping your flamee to that copy.
3. Go to town over there and keep the crap off the main forum.

'Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it.'

[dighton]

Marching Song of the Civil War* Threads

* For those of you who insist, "War of Northern Aggression."

[MrLeRoy]

I'd love to hear a reasoned, well-intentioned, conservative-based argument in favor of the Drug War. I haven't heard one yet.

Me neither.

[MrLeRoy]

Nice find!

[MrLeRoy]

The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of August 1917 banned the production of distilled spirits for the duration of the war. The War Prohibition Act of November 1918 forbade the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating beverages of more than 2.75 percent alcohol content, beer and wine as well as hard liquor, until demobilization was completed.

That these legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime.

[strela]

So are you an authoritarian Statist who desires to rule with an iron fist and shred the Constitution

or a Soros worshipping, libertine doper/pedophile/hippy pornmonger?

What a choice, what a choice ...

[tacticalogic]

That these legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime.

And people are willing to accept restrictions and regulations during wartime that would be considered draconian in peacetime. Perhaps the whole point of referring to it as a "War on Drugs" is to try and elicit that kind of compliance.

[MrLeRoy]

So are you an authoritarian Statist who desires to rule with an iron fist and shred the Constitution or a Soros worshipping, libertine doper/pedophile/hippy pornmonger?

They both sound like such fun ....

[RabidBartender]

Sorry, I learned my lesson on debating rationally here - for a lot of folks, it's more about sticking it to the other guy and winning technical points than than about the issues at hand. I am too thin-skinned for those types of threads and knowing the past histories of some posters, I automatically read their posts with some disdain - that ain't right. I'll stick to the "Julia Roberts Sucks" and "Screw the UN" fluff pieces, even though the majority of the issues here interest me.

It would be nice if folks were more civil and less hateful on heated threads like those. But I guess we'd sooner see Kevin Curry, tpaine, Cultural Jihad, ThomasJefferson, Dane, and Danconia55 sit down and agree on the sky being blue. (no offense to above named individuals)

And before anyone thinks I'm a touchy-feely whacko - screw the French and German governments! Nuke the whales! Close our borders!

[Libertina]

Thanks Admin Mod, you're a good one!

[robertpaulsen]

"That these legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime."

Yeah, I remember now. We used a different US Constitution during WWI. Could you do me a big favor and dig that one up for me?

[Nataku X]

Nah, post an article about how Asian women are better than white/American women and have a dozen Freepers show up saying that American women suck, are ugly, and that they'll never date American women again. Man, that thread was definitely flamebait.

[robertpaulsen]

"Nice find!"

Thank you. Thought it would make things interesting.

[MrLeRoy]

"That these legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime."

Yeah, I remember now. We used a different US Constitution during WWI.

No, but the Supreme Court has traditionally taken a relatively lenient view of federal actions presented as wartime needs.

[bvw]

Look, legislatures pass illegal laws at times. These temperance laws obviously were political bone-tosses. Did they get tested in the courts? Some times, such bad laws don't -- no one enforces them, mooting a court action, or as may have happened here -- a legitimate act superceded these bad laws and they never did get tested.

So let's ask ... Are they still in force now? And did they ever get tested in the courts?

[MrLeRoy]

"Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you [...] I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! [...] Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

[robertpaulsen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, you said that Congress needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. I proved to you that they didn't.

I'm done. The ball's in your court. If you can point out where these Acts were unconstitutional or illegal (other than just saying so), be my guest.

[MrLeRoy]

you said that Congress needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. I proved to you that they didn't.

No you didn't. That legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime.