Charles, haven't you ever heard a liberal MSM report that just made you inwardly chaff -- causing you to think, "Boy, if I could only have 2 minutes' rebuttal time with that reporter right now, we'd see if their version of truth held up to scrutiny!"
Now I suppose, Charles, if you had connections -- say to a Fox reporter -- I suppose the next time a liberal reporter offered up such provocative material, you could always conclude, "Ah, who needs a rebuttal? I can just call my Fox contact and they'll cover that angle in another piece."
Charles, falsehood left unchallenged is indeed an affront to truth.
So it’s funny to see people claiming that the caucus designation was somehow an affront to those NOT in the caucus, when they seem much more like a crutch for caucus members who don’t feel like defending their beliefs.
Well, indeed it is a "crutch." And yet what if...
(1) A fundamentalist Mormon came on FR and began defining TRUE Mormonism as embracing D&C 132 -- the everlasting covenant of celestial polygamous marriage...
(2) They plastered a "caucus" boundary on the thread, so that no Mormon could counter the argument that to be a "true" Mormon you had to embrace polygamy.
Don't you think a Mormon would have a right to challenge that Mormonism = polygamy? Should a "caucus" status be considered so "sacro-sanct" that we ignore the provocations some content illicits? (I don't think so)
Having been banned by other web sites, I have been through this (also, having not wished to join other liberal blogs).
I simply would link to the web site that banned me, and answer their stupidity in my own blog.
And if the fear is that someone would stumble across the caucus thread and miss the other, you could ask the religion moderator to allow a single non-caucus post to link to the open thread; I would guess that would be granted, and would be a reasonable way to allow a faith group to discuss among themselves in peace while still providing discussion for the rest of the board.
And we still have the moderators to remove the caucus designation if the caucus thread is attacking other faiths rather than simply discussing the faith of the caucus.
As to “chafing”, when I first started reading caucus threads, I couldn’t stand not correcting people who had their bible all wrong. That’s why I don’t read the caucus threads anymore.
I love my Catholic conservative brothers and sisters, but there are a few things their church believes that astound me; occasionally other beliefs different than mine have the same effect. And I know that some Catholics and some protestants feel the same way about my brand of belief.
But if they post in a caucus, they are off-limits to my “correction”. It doesn’t matter how much their belief offends my sensibility, if they simply discuss their own belief in a positive manner, and don’t attack other beliefs, the caucus protects them from having to deal with distractions like me and others trying to save them from their error.
If we didn’t have caucus threads, we’d be tearing at each other’s throats over religion all the time, and would fail to do the good conservative political work that is necessary. I don’t think that would necessarily HAVE to be the case, as I believe people can disagree about faith in a loving and respectful manner.
But if you have seen some open Catholic threads, or poke around a bit, you will find that it isn’t just the Mormons that feel they are attacked for their faith here at FR. The nature of freeper discussion appears to be a more phyiscal and personal debating style, one that leads to hurt feelings among those who allow feelings to be hurt by anonymous people posting to internet forums.
BTW, on your specific analogy, I actually do think that way. When I see something on the news that I think is dead wrong, I feel much better if I see or hear someone publicly state MY position; it doesn’t matter to me if it isn’t in the same forum; if someone has said it, I feel better.