13953: Davis RE: 13943: Nadal complains about Haiti Progres -- Corbett adds

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karen F. Davis <kdavis@marygrove.edu>

RE: Nadal's objection to Haiti Progres
My understanding is that Bob Corbett is the manager of this list-serve, not
Mr. Nadal. Decisions are made by Corbett; he very generously publicizes his
guidelines to us. Inclusion (or not) of  ALL posts is determined by him, not
by complaints from one or even many of us. This list-serve is not a
democracy (nor even a republic). We have the right to delete posts without
reading them, as I often do, since we can clearly see the sender and topic
in the heading.
Thanks for your work, Bob!!!

Corbett adds:  Thanks Karen, for you kind words and defense.
I want to add just a bit to what Karen says.  As most of you know I am a
retired professor of philosophy.  Now in retirement I've been returning to
my own work in philosophy with a great deal of seriousness.  The central
issue that has been consuming me of late is the notion of tolerance.
There is an important distinction to be made better tolerating SPEECH and
toleration OTHER ACTS.

My own view, reflected in this list, is that we all need desperately to
tolerate a huge range of speech in order that we can even better
understand views which we don't like at all, among other reasons.

I post many things on my list which I don't "like" at all and wish I
wouldn't both to read were I not the moderated and obligated to do so in
my role as moderator.

Haiti is a special case.  As we know from many posts on this list, the
press and media are not as free in Haiti as in many other places, and even
when free the media -- in any country -- has the biases of the people who
report and the people who own and run the media.

This forum is meant to be very different.  Yes, I did censor personal
attacks on list members.  I do this for two reasons, the main one so that
people don't get discouraged or bullied by mean attacks from others and
quit posting their views.  The second reason is taht this is a list about
Haiti.  If you post something about Haiti and I respond that:

1.  Your ARGUEMENT is dead wrong for these reasons.... then the subject of
that sentence is the ARGUMENT ABOUT HAITI and thus it is a Haiti post.

2.  If I write:  John Smith is stupid..... Then John Smith is the subject
and the post is not about Haiti, but about John Smith (Hope no one named
John Smith is a list member!!!).

As I often tell people when I reject a post because of a personal attack:

Attack the ARGUMENT of the other all you want, but please, just leave the
poster alone.

As to calls for me to stop posting this or that, well, I appreciate Karen
Davis' kind defense, but never worry about that.  I'm quite thick skinned,
and calls on me to not post items about Haiti will fall on deaf ears.

This will remain a forum open to ALL views, even views that I find
offensive, absurd and worse.  This forum let's it all hang out, as they
say, and will continue to do so.

Bob
----------------------

Karen F. Dimanche Davis
Associate Professor and Head, Humanities Department
Marygrove College
Detroit, Michigan 48221
Phone: 313-927-1352
Fax: 313-927-2345
E-mail: kdavis@marygrove.edu