CRC's Public Forum Allows Their Side Only

I hate to get into this, but to tell you the truth it is kind of upsetting. A second person has just had their comments on the CRC forum blocked.

See, here at this web site we have a blog format where somebody -- usually it's me -- posts something about a news story or something, and then anyone can comment. The very best is when people who disagree with our point of view come here and try to explain. Well, they're often snotty and sarcastic, but at least they're hearing what we say, and they do have a chance to express themselves if they care to. Sometimes the comments section gets a little wild. People aren't real careful about spelling and don't exactly work up an outline before they write something, so sometimes it's just a little ... woolly. But it's real time, it's people talking to one another, and it's often fascinating to watch them interact. I love our comment section.

I have never deleted anybody's comments because of the opinion they expressed. Some stuff, name-calling, pointless obscenity, sarcasm without a message ... I will delete. It's been quite a while since I had to delete anything. What opinion a person expresses has nothing at all to do with my decision.

I've been told that the CRC Forum actually has a thread titled "Slander from TeachTheFacts." It's about some things that were said here when the CRC member told the school board, with well-rehearsed indignation, that you could "meet hot gay men" from the web page of a "gay club" at a high school.

There have been some comments, and apparently quite a discussion over there, about this. Some CRC members actually seem to have seen how it works, they've seen the search engines, and they still think it's terrible that a student can get to a gay dating site through a search engine. My assessment is like the cartoon on Alex's blog that says: "You suck at the Internet." They just don't seem to understand how all this works, and think it all needs to be censored and blocked -- these web sites link to all kinds of things, including Christian sites, but all the CRC sees is gay, gay, gay.

So we learn:

Can you believe this? I was in a discussion there, and the administrator blocked me from saying anything! I can still read what other people write, but even if somebody responds to my last comment, I can't say anything back, because they've locked me out.

Here's what I said:

This is a real education for me -- at least two of you guys seem to be for real about this!

Do you think the school district should have like a sealed-off part of the Internet, where students can only reach things that CRC approves of? Is that what this is about -- a new model of computer communications divided into subsystems?

What about students who really do want to meet gay singles in their area?

Or what about the Students Against Drunk Driving at Walter Johnson? Their web site tricks you -- when you try to go to their "national organization" it diverts you to a web site with a text box -- I typed "sex" into that text box, and it gave me links to 671,000,000 web sites. Will the CRC tell the school board at their next meeting that the Students Against Drunk Driving are promoting illicit sexual behaviors?

I just wonder what kind of world you think you live in.

So later I checked back to see if anybody has had anything to say, and here's what I saw, a message from the Administrator.

WARNING - AGAIN

It is very simple. This is a click-see world. I don't care if google responds with 10000 ads for anal sex if you type in gay. The point is, without typing anything in, you can go from a MCPS approved web site, to hot gay singles ads without ever typing in anything. That is a form of tacit approval. This "search engine" defense is truly bizarre. This forum exists to discuss the welfare of children in the MCPS. The fact that children can go to google and type in anything is not relevant to this forum. They can get detailed plans using google to build a nuclear dirty bomb, but that does not make that an issue to be discussed here. CRCprecious made her point. It has been discussed to death. Let us all move on.

The funny thing is how they seem to need to control the discussion. They'll tell you themselves, they don't want two sides to a discussion. If you're not talking about what their administrator wants you to talk about, then they'll just lock you out.

Let me say, I've seen this other places, too. I belong to a couple of high-school Yahoo groups, and there is a certain faction that takes this weird approach -- as soon as anyone says anything vaguely "liberal" sounding, these people tell them to shut up. I've seen it at both my kids' high schools.

What they seem to want is for everyone to say the same thing, so they can all pat themselves on the back and tell themselves what a massively important political movement they represent. They don't need a bunch of wimpy stuff like "reasons" -- they know what they believe already, and there's no sense beating it to death with a bunch of blabbering.

Here at TeachTheFacts.org, we have a Yahoo group where people can share information and opinions. Almost as soon as we formed the group, people from the other side joined it under fake names. We do consider that group to be an "insider" discussion, more for planning things and noting relevant current events than for debating whether gay people are going to hell or not. But still, we've had several occasions where people from the other side try to impose their alien beliefs on us.

One time I volunteered to remove those people from the list. It'd be easy. And we had a big discussion, and it seemed clear that the majority of TeachTheFacts people did not want to remove the outsiders. They were probably good for keeping our views rigorous and well-defined, and besides it doesn't seem fair to exclude people just because they don't agree with us.

So we have this interesting kind of distinction between the two sides. Our side encourages the discussion, to a fault. We want to hear what the other side thinks, and sometimes some of us even agree with some of what they say. For instance, some of the stuff about STDs -- I think a lot of us agree with the CRC's doctor who says there ought to be more in the curriculum about STDs, especially as they are spread by homosexual behavior. Sounds good to us, some of us would support having a section of the sex-ed curriculum that helped gay students understand what to do to prevent the spread of disease.

The other side does not "do nuance." They don't care what anybody else thinks, they already know what they believe, and contrary opinions are just a kind of background noise, like a mosquito buzzing.

The CRC Forum threw out another person earlier this week, on similar grounds. Just didn't like what the person was saying. Couldn't stand the fact that somebody would have their own opinion and didn't ask permission before they expressed it.

In that case, the administrator wrote:

It is also unacceptable to reprint major "opinion pieces" from a web site that is in direct oposition to the CRC, ever.

That would be us. They don't want to hear anything from TeachTheFacts.org. Ever.

We remember when the first Recall message board was set up. Oh, how the nuts amused themselves! It was a madhouse, they were threatening people and saying crazy stuff, and they finally had to put a password on it and keep the rest of the world from seeing what they were saying. I remember the CRC President apologizing to the school board for threats that were made against them. It was something else. So I understand their admin wanting to keep a lid on things.

But man, there is a big difference between monitoring and controlling threatening messages and telling people that the topic has been "discussed to death" and that it's time to move on.