I post this message, day 23, for Pezhman, Liz, Yazmin, for Chauncey Tinker my message was the same but with little differences.
Dear Pezhman,
I write privately to you to comments my thoughts about the last events that happens to me in the community.
Thursday, 21 October, after I express my personal opinion that we, the conservatives, are the modern equivalent to the WW2 Jews in the Nazi Germany, in course to be eliminated, and that we need to defend ourselves by all means possible, including eliminating our executioners, the Ms. Jillian Becker publicly reprimanded me and summarily expelled me from our community!
I was shocked, very sad, and very disappointed…
Many reasons for all these feelings…
First, because I had a great feeling of loneliness for not be able of relating to people with a worldview like ours (simultaneously skeptical and conservative), which is the minority of minorities (this one really legitimate!).
So, you can’t imagine my joy to be among you and to be able to openly express my opinions about everything! I really wanted more than just to participate in a community of like-minded people, I wanted to build genuine friendships!
But what I found was a relatively cold community, uninterested in building personal bonds, with little engagement (only 5 or 6 people, out of only 30, read, post, comment and give likes).
And, worse, I get kicked out of the group just two weeks after joining and being an active member!
Second, I was judged summarily and publicly, with no right of defense by the owner of the group, which does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the other members, which weakens the individual value that each member aggregates for the community.
I think that would have been more appropriate that Ms. Becker could have approached me privately, and discussed our difference of opinion, and given me a chance to eventually correct my posts and clarify my opinion.
Make this publicly and without discussion signaling to the community that this space is not really open to debate extreme topics, the very important ones, that need to be spoken frankly. This show that she wants this Forum as a space of friendly agreement. No divergence of what she thinks is right is admitted.
I may argue that the utility of this Forum is little effective in minimizing the grave world’s problems, since it is limited only to sharing our discomfort with the present world’s facts and route, but without any capacity to propose and really act to transform this world into something better.
While our enemies act to implement the world they want, we positioned ourselves as mere spectators, limiting ourselves to commenting on the bad things they do, but doing nothing to change it, other than writing criticism.
My goal in this community was exactly about this, to draw attention to this very limited approach and to call on everyone to start acting more effectively!
We are the passengers of a Titanic, our ship is sinking and we are debating infinitely about how bad this is, that the Iceberg is bad, instead of running to close the hole, remove the excess of water, get the life jackets, prepare the lifeboats!
What surprised me most is that we, the atheist-conservatives, can agree 99% on everything, but if we disagree just 1%, we are judged, silenced and summarily repelled!
Just us who fight for freedom of speech! For independence of opinion, of thinking! I thought that was very hypocritical…
Also (and sad), what is the future of a so small group that cannot keep itself united after encountering the slightest disagreement?
I think that especially we, the atheist-conservatives, should be much more resilient to the eventual disagreements that separate us, than the many affinities that unite us!
We are rejected by the entire Left, by the Conservatives and even by the Atheists, that is, we are like the outcasts of all human societies, just because we are more lucid and coherent than they!
And even among ourselves, we are unable to reconcile our differences! This exposes that we have a dark future ahead of us…
Third, Ms. Becker said publicly that I committed a crime, that I am an immoral person, with a heart full of grief and that I put the whole community at risk.
But the curious is that the first thing I did as soon I joined the community was to alert about the probable situation that all intelligence agencies may be monitoring our community and the risks of speaking publicly about our opinions, which are becoming more and more criminalized!
I suggested creating a second community, similar to the public one, but totally private, only to invited people, so that we could talk more safely about all the risks and what we can do to defend ourselves.
But Ms. Becker vehemently refused it! And she said that she wants that all these agencies clearly knew what we thought and talk!
Some time later (about 10 days) she signaled me to create this private community and promote it here (I think after Chauncey Tinker manifest some kind of support to this proposition, but apparently, he deletes this post before I can read, I could only deduce from her answer).
The very reason why I had created the posts about Digital “Resistance Tools” and “Planned Global Crisis?”.
But, unfortunately, for me there was not enough time, being expelled a few hours later for the exact reason that I wanted to prevent it! Except being self-censored by the moderator herself! She shows that fear the open exposition of polemic opinions and confirmed the importance of we have a private and safer space to debate! Very contradictory…
Fourth, which also saddened me a lot, no one in the community has come to me, publicly or privately to talk to me, to offer some kind of conciliation, either to suggest some sort of solution, or even solidarity, or the desire to continue the friendship, regardless of here. Everyone silenced in concordance…
This showed a (possible) behavior of collective obedience, submission to authority, something surprising and unexpected from people with our political and scientific positioning, from people who (supposedly) think independently and who question central authority!
Or pure disinterest in the other members… Are we so individualistic that the misfortunes of our fellow members do not deserve our involvement?
This silent and indifferent behavior made me think that in the event of the world’s political situation getting worse, that people here would have no problem turning each other to help authorities to hunt us.
Which also led me to the sad conclusion that our segment, of atheists-conservatives is not minimally united, is unable of organize, and we are doomed to disappear…
I can’t tell if this is a reflection of just this community, precisely because of the centralized and controlling behavior of Ms. Becker or if from everyone like us everywhere.
Maybe this explains why we are so few and so unengaged here.
Perhaps many are disenchanted and have distanced themselves.
Maybe I was not the first case of this kind of censorship, and many have lost interest in participating.
As a consequence of all these problems, I am stepping away from this community, and deleting all my posts, something requested by Ms. Becker.
I started to do this just some hours after this sad episode (from the beginning to the present), but the system blocked me for 24 hours after a certain number of edits to my posts.
I also don’t know what your position will be after knowing all these facts, but I would like to keep in touch with you outside this forum, of course, if you are also interested. If not, I will understand.
Thanks for the great comments, sorry for the long ramble, and good luck in life, it looks like we’re going to need a lot of it for what’s to come!
