encounters of the weird kind

[stas]

Returning to the theme of the liberal notion of debate, here's one more case study.
Recently insomnia, who was working for LJ in the past and moderates community sfbayarea, posted some political comments expressing his disagreement with the fact that Mormon church participates in California's political process, specifically Proposition 8 (gay marriage) and promoting a petition published on the site with the URL "mormonsstoleourrights.com" (yes, that's "Mormons stole our rights").

I tried to talk to him and express the opinion that religious people have the right to influence politics in the same way as other people do, and the fact that some organization is called "church" should not automatically mean its members are disqualified from having political opinions or publicizing them. Nothing outrageous, right? That led to me being promptly banned from the community by the moderator, after the second comment - without any warning, explanation or reason given.
Note that there were no insults traded, heated discussion or anything like that - some polite exchange of ideas, and then just in the middle of discussion, trying to answer his comment, I discover I am banned. Classy, right?

I guess that's one more example of how such people understand the notion of discussion - "my way or the highway". The mere fact that somebody dares to disagree with them is absolutely intolerable for them.

The funny addition is that the same person is obviously very proud of his open-mindedness and rationality (see his user profile). That apparently does not include being open to any disagreement or rational discussion, if only he can help it. 

Comments

[selfmade.livejournal.com]

Well, your case study does not include the case with "such people" being banned in right-wing community for obvious reason that you can't be "such person" to perform the experiment. So it's incomplete to say the least.

[stas]

What do you think the meaning of "case study" is?

[selfmade.livejournal.com]

Is it the overgeneralization made after seeing one sheep that is white on one side?

[stas]

There's a lot of sheep out there, and if you take a good look, you'll find so many of them white on all sides. Of course, one can always imagine the side he's not looking at somehow just became black. Sometimes it's therapeutic ;)