Today's philosophical rant is on censorship.

When a government seeks to censor the governed, that is generally considered "bad". Many governments have rules in place to prevent the governments from doing that to the governed, in recognition of the fact that the individual and his opinions are just as important as anyone else's. Most of those governments observe various restrictions, however, and many "public servants" would prefer to do away with any free speech altogether -- coming soon to an internment camp near you.

CureZone is not a government. It is a privately run web site. The purpose of CureZone's forums is to provide a chat space for like-minded individuals to discuss alternatives. In most forums, this is intended to be supportive. In a few forums, this may extend to serious debate.

CureZone does not owe its allegiance to any particular belief system, including the belief in the "right" of any individual to foment discord among those who are properly using CureZone's forums to support each other in their quests for personal responsibility for their own health.

In case anyone hasn't realized it yet, avoiding standard medical practice, particularly the use of drugs, is CureZone's raison d'etre. The wonders of drugs and surgery and chemotherapy and radiation treatments may be happily discussed on forums elsewhere. If you're going to try to promote a drug dealer's product, use the drug dealer's forum and the drug dealer's financing, OK?

Pretty simple stuff.

Any post which violates the basic rules -- support each other in Support Forums , debate considerately in Debate Forums -- is going to be removed. If I were in charge, any post which goads others into replying and then attempts to "get others into trouble" over the content of their messages would be a bannable offense. It's nothing but power-trolling, and it deserves no quarter here at CureZone. CureZone is here for the benefit of others, not for the self-interest of a few.

Someone may not like the way this site is run, but that does not give one the right to misuse the site. No one is stopping anyone from forming their own "anti-CureZone" site and saying whatever they'd like about whatever it is they'd like. I will even defend your right to make up your own web site and criticize CureZone all you'd like. Hijacking CureZone to try to get your anti-CureZone points across is, however, unacceptable.

Will CureZone's moderators "censor" trolls? You betcha. If you don't want to be censored, follow the rules. Better yet, just learn to be courteous, and the rules won't even matter any more.

=-John-=