Beat him with a birch cane on his bare bottom

@yebellz. Of course. I was just poking fun at him because he sent me this PM:

Hey Draugnar!

I have a personal request for you. Since you're a mod and your posts can't be muted, could you try not to use the F-word in the title of a post? I don't want my family seeing that in bold print when I'm perusing the Forum. Mod = nobless oblige. :-)

I responded I wasn't a mod and if his family can't take the posts, they shouldn't be viewing the site.

@yebellz freedom of speech doesn't give people the freedom not to listen.

There is no Freedom of Listening in the Bill of Rights. Americans are required by the Constitution to listen to everything they can hear.

Fis response to that was:

Thanks for your uninformed opinion. Your not being a mod makes things easier.

@abge - It always cracks me up when people yell "Freedom of Speech" and think that i have to listen to their crap. Hilarious!

Yeah... muting doesn't really have anything to do with freedom of speech, Draug.

My point is that rather than just trying to mute either me or the offending thread, he felt it necessary to try to alter my way of expressing myself. All he had to do was look at my name and see I wasn't a mod then mute me without saying a word. I'd never have known. Now, instead, he gets to be ridiculed. :-)

Oh, and his attempt to make me alter my activity *is* an attempt to stifle my freedom of speech. The fact he was a moron and couldn't do a simple click on the thread mute to see if it went away says so much about him.

Well, I don't see his actions as necessarily unreasonable. I mean, presumably, he wanted not to mute you, but he was going to have to if you didn't change, due to his code, or whatever.

Now I don't particularly understand the point in muting people for language, but if one has decided to do so, then politely asking people to write differently is completely reasonable. They can always say no.

" Oh, and his attempt to make me alter my activity *is* an attempt to stifle my freedom of speech. "

No, it's not. It's an attempt to request that you voluntarily change how you exercise that freedom.

Stifling your freedom of speech would be if he asked the mods to mute you globally because of your language.

Well, he is still a douche for not even trying to mute the offending thread. I consider driving him to mute me to be a victory for those who wish to express themselves without being harassed by the Religious right assholes for their language - the same assholes who bomb abortion clinics and harass poor women who are already traumatized and having to make the toughest decision of their lives.

So since he muted you, can he still see this thread? I know that you can mute a person, but what happens if the muted person starts a thread? Are we all muted by proxy?

Well, let's not get crazy here. My grandmother doesn't like cussing, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't bombed any abortion clinics.

"without being harassed by the Religious right assholes for their language - the same assholes who bomb abortion clinics and harass poor women who are already traumatized and having to make the toughest decision of their lives. "

Come now. I realize you're upset and venting, but in your more reasonable mode, I think you'd have to admit that there are a lot more people who take perhaps undue offense at strong language than would ever even consider bombing an abortion clinic.

@Fasces: yes, I agree that Freedom of Speech and Freedom to Not Listen are semantically two different concepts.

If you read my statement carefully, you'll see that I had phrased it as a rhetorical question in order to hint at this distinction while implying that I think that one right should come with the other.

I'm just having fun poking fun at a guy who voluntarily won't defend himself because his family (who shouldn't be looking over his shoulder any how) might see the word "fuck".

I think I have a Bible passage that deals with this issue

I think he was just asking you to be considerate of others, and probably wouldn't have brought it up if it wasn't a real concern of his. He is the guy who does the daily Bible reading, after all. Maybe you should care a little more about what others think of you, especially if they appear to have a higher standard of morals than you. I'm not saying that you're completely in the wrong, but it really isn't that much to ask, is it? Even aside from the whole limiting your freedom of speech, he's just expressing a concern of his. You know, you shouldn't be offended, which you obviously are. The mute feature is there for a reason, and he has fulfilled its purpose. You brought this upon yourself, and despite whatever conviction you feel from it, a pity thread isn't really all that necessary...

What the fuck does morals have to do with fucking language, Atom-brain? Honestly, self-righteous pricks like him offend me with their constant pushing of religion. As far as cursing goes, Saying fuck, cunt, cocksucker, shit, pussy, etc. does not take the Lord's name in vain. They are potty words, nothing more. As far as faith, I have plenty of faith. I can quote the Bible with the best of them and did so a few weeks back when I was in the middle of the Lenten disciplines. But if this site is a free speech zone and the speech offends him, maybe he shouldn't be here. It's like walking into a bar and asking the patrons to all drink iced tea while you are there or walking into a strip club and asking the girls to not take their clothes off. "If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out" doesn't mean to ask others to alter their habits and ways. It means to pick where you choose to go. In short, if the site offends thee, quit visiting it!

I think Mutant is the only person I have Muted, not him personally but his threads, if I want Spam I go to Month Python, not the Bible.

Wow, what a rant, Draugnar. I guess I must have unknowingly pushed one of your buttons. Please *excuse* me for offending you so. And your timing might have been a bit off, but now I'm definitely muting you because really, it's unpleasant to listen to this stuff. But that doesn't mean that I don't care about you. :-) TTFN

Please don't mute him, that will only encourage him, we'll just up the dosage, that should sort things out :-)

Hahaha Mujus! You had muted me before. How do I know? Cause I tried to PM you and it didn't go through! Fucking liar!

Bring me my hammer, this situation needs to be dealt with in the correct manner, I knew you'd get to nail him in the end

Ok here we go. While Draugnar has been extremely rude and offensive, there are two things that I need to apologize for. 1. When I said "thank you for your uninformed opinion," I was reacting rather than responding. That was wrong, even though I was provoked, and even though it reflects what I believe about your response. 2. When I said "your timing might be a bit off," I was strongly implying that I hadn't muted you. Again, that was wrong of me, even though I said it in reaction to your rant, which I think you can admit was a overreacting. The truth is that I've muted you on at least on occasion in the past and again when you responded to me as rudely as you did--but then I decided to read what you had posted, so I unmuted you, found your rant, and muted you again. My request was a simple one and you chose to go all weird on me. TTFN

So you lied about my timing beimg off. Isn't that one of those commandment things you aren't supposed to do? And here I thought you were a good Christian so perfect and all that. Fuck! Your a sinner just like me. Difference is I lnow amd confess my sins and know Jesus died and rose again so that none shpuld perish bit all have everlasting life.

"What the fuck does morals have to do with fucking language, Atom-brain?"

Since you asked, perhaps you won't be offended if I draw your attention to Colossians 3:8 and James 3:9-10 as a starting point for a faith-oriented consideration of vulgar language.