No more right-wing bullshit.

[sean]

👋 Howdy y'all.

 

I wanted to tell you that I've decided to:

• Revoke all existing moderators.
• Ask all committed right-wing members of the forum to leave.

I realize this may seem extreme and come as a shock to many. I'll do my best to explain where I'm coming from, what this means for the forum moving forward and I'll also request help.

 

 

> WTF?

 

Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

 

I made a fundamental mistake in the foundational ethos for this forum: believing that "no insults, be nice" is a powerful enough core virtue to sustain a diverse, healthy community.

 

The problem with "just be nice" is that it's impotent in the face of organized malice.

 

In a society where marginalized people often suffer invisibly, taking a clear, assertive stance against the creeping normalization of bigotry and even outright fascism whenever possible is far more important than being "nice" merely to avoid rattling an oppressive status quo.

 

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

> This is about Trump, isn't it?

 

Donald Trump is a menacing buffoon but also mostly a disgusting symptom of a very sick society.

 

He's also a kind of litmus test for how deranged I find someone's morality. Being anti-Trump is not "partisan" (if being nonpartisan is even possible or noble). One of the lowest ethical bars I can imagine is finding Trump repugnant.

 

I'm not even going to waste time enumerating Trump's voluminous flaws and demonic policy positions. If you're pro-Trump you almost certainly already know and don't care.

 

This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values, and I'm drawing a line in the sand.

 

> What should pro-Trump and other far-right members of the forum do now?

 

You should leave.

 

If you're pro-Trump, I'm asking you to leave this forum. You're not welcome here anymore.

 

If you're right-wing, please leave.

 

We might need a bullet list. Here we go:

• If you're pro-Trump, please leave.
• If you're right-wing, please leave.
• If you're pro-border wall, pro-ICE, racist, homophobic, transphobic or misogynist, please fuck off and leave.

The web is awash with other far-right friendly dumpsters you can crawl into.

 

If you think it's unacceptable that I'm booting members with dangerous, disgusting, antisocial politics, you should probably leave too.

 

(Sidenote: If you're some strange brew of anti-fascist, social anarchist, left-libertarian, or anti-authoritarian, democratic Marxist, socialist or communist infidel, please stay and help me raise hell! ✊ Are there any other leftists here? 👀)

 

> This is an outrage!! ** shits entire diaper ** You're the real fascist, watch this 4-hour Youtube video, something something ...

 

I'm unfortunately acutely aware that if you're being asked to leave that you're not going to understand this decision.

 

I trust that you're going to settle on a self-serving narrative in which I'm a cartoon, totalitarian-communist, "cultural Marxist" suppressor of your patriotic free speech. I'm a hysterical, intolerant "snowflake" that can't stand proximity to your brilliant, hard-truths, lest I be destroyed by sheer "facts and logic".

 

I don't care. I've made peace with your ignorance.

 

Allow me to repeat for those in the back: This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values. So much so that I'm asking you to leave my forum without further discussion.

 

> Did the moderators do anything wrong?

 

I sincerely appreciate the time and energy the previous team put into tending to the forum. If they made mistakes in terms of moderating, I'd hedge they were mostly a result of inheriting the laissez-faire, lazy-white-guy ethos that I unfortunately fostered and encouraged.

 

If you were a part of the previous team and are not being asked to leave and you still want to help out, please PM me.

 

> But this is a spiritual forum!

 

Spirituality without material roots is a dead tree, my friend.

 

The notion that spiritual cultivation, of all things, should somehow be categorically divorced from moral maturation and praxis is a "bad take".

 

This forum has always strived to be a big tent for all manner of weirdos from diverse spiritual and sociopolitical backgrounds.

 

But there have also been times when new boundaries needed to be set. This is one of them.

 

> But what about the terrible things that Obama, Hillary, etc. have done?

 

As I said, I'm not going to debate, and this isn't a political 101 education forum.

 

For what it's worth, here are some of my recent thoughts on the center-right led Democratic party and the rise of Trumpism:

• The Democratic Party is not inculpable for Trumpism
• Trump is not a unique Republican

If the grotesque insincerity of center-right Democrats (e.g. Clinton and Obama) are the reason that anyone reading this has hitched to the neoreactionary Trump dump-truck, please find a local shaman to unbind this rotten hex. There's a better and much more magical way forward. ✨

 

> I'm not right or left, I'm a truth-seeker, you're being unreasonable.

 

I've found that people who claim they're "neither right nor left," especially U.S. citizens, are usually center-right at best. (And often worse, e.g., right-wing libertarians or crypto-antisemitic conspiracy-theorists.)

 

The political terms "left" and "right" have ideological meaning. Likewise "centrism" is not defined via an attempt to locate a compromised middle ground somewhere between right-wing Republican monsters and diet-right-wing corporatist Democrats.

 

I've written more about this here: This is what passes for "reasonable" politics.

 

> What about free speech?

 

There's a popular notion that the only civilized approach to social disagreement is to always hear out "all sides" in the "free marketplace of ideas", an imaginary immaterial abstraction. That opinions, no matter how brain-dead stupid or toxic, should always be honored and meticulously ironed out via public "intellectual" debate.

 

But this kind of free speech absolutism is often a pretentious stance weaponized to platform memetic bigotry and silence already marginalized views.

 

By extreme analogy, imagine if there were pro-slavery members on this forum. My stance is that it's a complete waste of time to argue with these people. It would pollute our space with the delusion that both sides of this "debate" are legitimate.

 

I think most of us would agree that bans of racist and violent speech are appropriate. I'm drawing a new, firmer line in the sand.

 

No racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, climate change denial, fascism, crypto-fascism, antisocial bigotry, or far-right bullshit in general (including QAnon and Pizzagate lunacy).

 

There are plenty of other reactionary ashcans on the Internet for these "very fine folks" to brigade.

 

Speech is not harmless. Speech has real, immediate, direct, material consequences on other human beings. Implicitly allowing socially toxic rhetoric to continue platforming itself unchecked in a space, poisons that space, and disproportionately harms the least powerful.

 

> This is a slippery slope, where will it end?

 

Fully automated luxury gay space communism, obviously. You should probably leave now before the communism and gay-stuff starts happening. 🍆💦

 

> This seems exclusionary and mean.

 

It's exclusionary and not nice, but I don't think it's mean, at least not senselessly.

 

Ask yourself, how many thoughtful, gracious members of this forum have quietly left after seeing relatively uncontested right-wing bullshit plastered across the forums here? I'm aware of several personally.

 

And I don't think the bullshit here is undisputed because of implicit support. I think it's merely sidestepped for the same reason most reasonable people avoid challenging someone screaming evangelical diatribes on the subway. It's literally just not worth the effort. i.e., "the amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."

 

There's plenty of other subways on the internet to scream inside. This one is no longer tolerating right-wing bullshit.

 

> Are we abandoning confused people who maybe need this forum the most?

 

Meh. I think this question comes from a decent place. But this isn't a political education forum. My stance is that we need to reestablish a bare minimum baseline of shared values.

 

> Are you still with me?

 

If so, that must mean:

1. You weren't asked to leave.
2. You think it's okay and even very good that I've gone full heruka.

Welcome! I'm delighted to have you here. I hope you'll stay. ❤️

 

And I hope you'll stand in solidarity with me as I perch precariously on this fraught limb I've now climbed out on. It's my sincere hope that we can reclaim and reenchant The Dao Bums as a weird-left-friendly space again.

 

> Will you help me?

 

I do need your help. In fact I won't be able to do this without you. Please PM me if you're interested in helping our community. There will be free snacks. 🙃

 

With Love,

Sean

 

[rideforever]

Hello there.

The Tao Bums has many members here who are interested in Taoist Arts.

It functions reasonably according to that definition, and much time has been invested in building a community.

What you wish to create is very commendable but could be created through a different URL with a name that accurately describes your wishes. 

That could be easily done and then there would be two websites, the new one could simply copy the old code structure.

This one could be re-managed by some of the existing people, and anyone would prefers the new website with a new direction could jump across.

If not the community here would be unnecessarily damaged.

 

[Apech]

Quote

I made a fundamental mistake in the foundational ethos for this forum: believing that "no insults, be nice" is a powerful enough core virtue to sustain a diverse, healthy community.

 

But it did work - this place is diverse and healthy - and thriving.

[Zork]

@sean

 I used the laugh at your post because when i saw the banner "no more right-wing bullshit" i ROFLed

Keep it up!

 

PS

I know it is a serious post. I am not laughing at it. I am laughing because of the shock effect on the forum.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Zork

[thelerner]

I'm with the breath of fresh air people, but I don't like Left-ish insults, nastiness or propaganda any more then the Right.   I prefer a site thats less political and not become an Echo chamber for the Left. 

 

Imo, you're throwing out an awful lot of baby with the bathwater here as far as the mods go.

 

That being said, this is a great community.  The best way to keep it that way is participate, communicate, ask questions, give answers.  Politics, particularly the nasty side, should not be a focal point.  Lifes to big for that. 

[Apech]

10 minutes ago, thelerner said:

I'm with the breath of fresh air people, but I don't like Left-ish insults, nastiness or propaganda any more then the Right.   I prefer a site thats less political and not become an Echo chamber for the Left. 

 

Imo, you're throwing out an awful lot of baby with the bathwater here as far as the mods go.

 

That being said, this is a great community.  The best way to keep it that way is participate, communicate, ask questions, give answers.  Politics, particularly the nasty side, should not be a focal point.  Lifes to big for that. 

 

 

I agree on too much politics.

[Nintendao]

1 hour ago, sean said:

Fully automated luxury gay space communism, obviously.

 

I ship it.

[Fa Xin]

Thanks for letting me be the Welcome wagon for a bit... It’s been fun.  

 

The staff change comes at a fortuitous time, as I’ve been bogged down with work and school stuff. 

 

Edited July 30, 2019 by Fa Xin

[Zork]

23 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

I agree on too much politics.

It got out of hand lately.

The dao bums became more bums and less Dao.

There seems to be a wind of change. Let's see...

[Toni]

But is that a political forum? I think it would be better to forget politics a little bit here. Just avoid it and focus on spirituality and the like. To ban and discriminate people because of their political opinions is very dangerous. Think well about this.

There will always be different opinions. History tells us about countries that have done this in the past (discrimination based on ideology), and the lesson is not very nice

Edited July 30, 2019 by Toni

[ralis]

5 minutes ago, Toni said:

But is that a political forum? I think it would be better to forget politics a little bit here. Just avoid it and focus on spirituality and the like. To ban and discriminate people because of their political opinions is very dangerous. Think well about this.

There will always be different opinions. History tells us about countries that have done this in the past (discrimination based on ideology), and the lesson is not very nice

 

Did you read either one of the Trump threads? That should be a wake up call as to what was written.

[Fa Xin]

13 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

Did you read either one of the Trump threads? That should be a wake up call as to what was written.

 

I didn’t really, so it comes as a bit of a surprise to me, as I didn’t see any political stuff in the General Chat, or the “Hindu/Buddhist/Daoist” sections. I didn't visit Off-Topic very often. 

[Toni]

16 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

Did you read either one of the Trump threads? That should be a wake up call as to what was written.

That is why i suggest to avoid politics here

[Kar3n]

I've spent the better part of 3 years upholding and enforcing the egalitarian principles of this forum and defending the thing you, @sean set into motion years ago.

 

I left the day you chose to show how little respect you have for the team who kept this place afloat by closing reports and refusing to answer questions.

 

I've come back here to inform you that I believed in what you had going here. I loved that it was a diverse community awash with different view, people and practices. 

 

Sad you've chosen this path and shat on those who had real faith in you and TDB as a whole. It's really sad...

 

 

See ya bums. 

[Fa Xin]

1 minute ago, Kar3n said:

I've spent the better part of 3 years upholding and enforcing the egalitarian principles of this forum and defending the thing you, @sean set into motion years ago.

 

I left the day you chose to show how little respect you have for the team who kept this place afloat by closing reports and refusing to answer questions.

 

I've come back here to inform you that I believed in what you had going here. I loved that it was a diverse community awash with different view, people and practices. 

 

Sad you've chosen this path and shat on those who had real faith in you and TDB as a whole. It's really sad...

 

 

See ya bums. 

 

 Very sad indeed. 

[Toni]

It is not very moral to ban people because of their ideas. That is discrimination and sectarism. It shows a total lack of respect and toleration for those with different views

Edited July 30, 2019 by Toni

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Zork said:

It got out of hand lately.

The dao bums became more bums and less Dao.

There seems to be a wind of change. Let's see...

 

yes but I think that just reflects that things have become very polarised in the political field.  People move right or left because they are dissatisfied with how things are.  Really of course we should look inside to find harmony and balance.  But even then we might have view about what's happening which hopefully transcends right/left dichotomy.  Maybe some people on here forgot that - but I don't believe the board as whole has forgotten.

 

 

[cheya]

IMO, the mods now displaced have done an admirable job trying to follow Sean's previous directions, and I thank them for all the time and energy they have put into maintaining the site. I know it was a LOT of time and energy, and I am truly grateful.

I might be wrong, but I suspect the emotions, polarization, and contentiousness fired up in the political threads made their jobs as mods much more time consuming and fraught than they would have been otherwise. I don't think it helped that they were also regular participants in the content of the threads, which may have made their modding decisions suspect from some points of view. I can also see why the new lines in the sand that Sean is drawing might make installing a new set of mods a wise choice.

I hope Sean can find willing members to take it on. I do think that modding will be easier when the scope of board discussions has been drawn in somewhat... But I also hope that political discussions that generate lots of emotionally charged disagreement will not feature largely (if at all) in the board going forward... only time will tell.

[s1va]

1 hour ago, Kar3n said:

I've spent the better part of 3 years upholding and enforcing the egalitarian principles of this forum and defending the thing you, @sean set into motion years ago.

 

I left the day you chose to show how little respect you have for the team who kept this place afloat by closing reports and refusing to answer questions.

 

I've come back here to inform you that I believed in what you had going here. I loved that it was a diverse community awash with different view, people and practices. 

 

Sad you've chosen this path and shat on those who had real faith in you and TDB as a whole. It's really sad...

 

 

See ya bums. 

 

Those that were part of the staff in the last three years will know the amount of time, dedication and hard work that Karen put forth (behind the scenes) as a moderator in this site to fulfill the user requests and to uphold the rules were instrumental for this forum to function (day to day).  I want to thank Karen and others that were part of the staff on behalf of all users of TDB. It is very sad indeed that the owner whom many of us do not know or ever interacted with would suddenly show up and without interacting with the current staff just act and make authoritative decisions overlooking the rules and summarily discard the current staff in a post like this.  Owner has the right to run his/her site anyway they want, but to suddenly show up after years, taking actions disregarding the rules and terms set forth for the site, to not reply back or answer questions from current staff members or show any gratitude towards the people that were maintaining/running this site in the owner's absence all seem pretty rude and to be stemming from some ignorant bias, blinded by some extreme ideologies leaning towards some side or 'ism'.  Sadly none of this is consistent the with the principles of Dao which is part of the name of this site.

 

I was one of the moderators from the staff that was discarded.  But, I was not active here recently (past 3 months) due to personal reasons.  I was very happy to receive the news that I am not a moderator anymore for whatever reason.  I was going to ask dawei to replace me with someone that can actually spend time moderating here.   I was sickened by the political bickering in this site (right or left, doesn't matter) and stayed away from it, even as a moderator only tending to other duties as I can.  

 

I do not have strong political inclinations and otherwise not bothered personally by any of Sean's messages or actions though I do not agree with them.  I will continue to be here to see where all this goes.  I like some of the other members and I have some very good friends in this site.  This is the reason why I was here and I will continue to be here.  If many or all of those leave, there will be no reason for me to be here, not that it should matter to anyone.

Edited July 30, 2019 by s1va

[moment]

3 hours ago, sean said:

👋 Howdy y'all.

 

I wanted to tell you that I've decided to:

• Revoke all existing moderators.
• Ask all committed right-wing members of the forum to leave.

I realize this may seem extreme and come as a shock to many. I'll do my best to explain where I'm coming from, what this means for the forum moving forward and I'll also request help.

 

 

> WTF?

 

Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

 

I made a fundamental mistake in the foundational ethos for this forum: believing that "no insults, be nice" is a powerful enough core virtue to sustain a diverse, healthy community.

 

The problem with "just be nice" is that it's impotent in the face of organized malice.

 

In a society where marginalized people often suffer invisibly, taking a clear, assertive stance against the creeping normalization of bigotry and even outright fascism whenever possible is far more important than being "nice" merely to avoid rattling an oppressive status quo.

 

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

> This is about Trump, isn't it?

 

Donald Trump is a menacing buffoon but also mostly a disgusting symptom of a very sick society.

 

He's also a kind of litmus test for how deranged I find someone's morality. Being anti-Trump is not "partisan" (if being nonpartisan is even possible or noble). One of the lowest ethical bars I can imagine is finding Trump repugnant.

 

I'm not even going to waste time enumerating Trump's voluminous flaws and demonic policy positions. If you're pro-Trump you almost certainly already know and don't care.

 

This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values, and I'm drawing a line in the sand.

 

> What should pro-Trump and other far-right members of the forum do now?

 

You should leave.

 

If you're pro-Trump, I'm asking you to leave this forum. You're not welcome here anymore.

 

If you're right-wing, please leave.

 

We might need a bullet list. Here we go:

• If you're pro-Trump, please leave.
• If you're right-wing, please leave.
• If you're pro-border wall, pro-ICE, racist, homophobic, transphobic or misogynist, please fuck off and leave.

The web is awash with other far-right friendly dumpsters you can crawl into.

 

If you think it's unacceptable that I'm booting members with dangerous, disgusting, antisocial politics, you should probably leave too.

 

(Sidenote: If you're some strange brew of anti-fascist, social anarchist, left-libertarian, or anti-authoritarian, democratic Marxist, socialist or communist infidel, please stay and help me raise hell! ✊ Are there any other leftists here? 👀)

 

> This is an outrage!! ** shits entire diaper ** You're the real fascist, watch this 4-hour Youtube video, something something ...

 

I'm unfortunately acutely aware that if you're being asked to leave that you're not going to understand this decision.

 

I trust that you're going to settle on a self-serving narrative in which I'm a cartoon, totalitarian-communist, "cultural Marxist" suppressor of your patriotic free speech. I'm a hysterical, intolerant "snowflake" that can't stand proximity to your brilliant, hard-truths, lest I be destroyed by sheer "facts and logic".

 

I don't care. I've made peace with your ignorance.

 

Allow me to repeat for those in the back: This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values. So much so that I'm asking you to leave my forum without further discussion.

 

> Did the moderators do anything wrong?

 

I sincerely appreciate the time and energy the previous team put into tending to the forum. If they made mistakes in terms of moderating, I'd hedge they were mostly a result of inheriting the laissez-faire, lazy-white-guy ethos that I unfortunately fostered and encouraged.

 

If you were a part of the previous team and are not being asked to leave and you still want to help out, please PM me.

 

> But this is a spiritual forum!

 

Spirituality without material roots is a dead tree, my friend.

 

The notion that spiritual cultivation, of all things, should somehow be categorically divorced from moral maturation and praxis is a "bad take".

 

This forum has always strived to be a big tent for all manner of weirdos from diverse spiritual and sociopolitical backgrounds.

 

But there have also been times when new boundaries needed to be set. This is one of them.

 

> But what about the terrible things that Obama, Hillary, etc. have done?

 

As I said, I'm not going to debate, and this isn't a political 101 education forum.

 

For what it's worth, here are some of my recent thoughts on the center-right led Democratic party and the rise of Trumpism:

• The Democratic Party is not inculpable for Trumpism
• Trump is not a unique Republican

If the grotesque insincerity of center-right Democrats (e.g. Clinton and Obama) are the reason that anyone reading this has hitched to the neoreactionary Trump dump-truck, please find a local shaman to unbind this rotten hex. There's a better and much more magical way forward. ✨

 

> I'm not right or left, I'm a truth-seeker, you're being unreasonable.

 

I've found that people who claim they're "neither right nor left," especially U.S. citizens, are usually center-right at best. (And often worse, e.g., right-wing libertarians or crypto-antisemitic conspiracy-theorists.)

 

The political terms "left" and "right" have ideological meaning. Likewise "centrism" is not defined via an attempt to locate a compromised middle ground somewhere between right-wing Republican monsters and diet-right-wing corporatist Democrats.

 

I've written more about this here: This is what passes for "reasonable" politics.

 

> What about free speech?

 

There's a popular notion that the only civilized approach to social disagreement is to always hear out "all sides" in the "free marketplace of ideas", an imaginary immaterial abstraction. That opinions, no matter how brain-dead stupid or toxic, should always be honored and meticulously ironed out via public "intellectual" debate.

 

But this kind of free speech absolutism is often a pretentious stance weaponized to platform memetic bigotry and silence already marginalized views.

 

By extreme analogy, imagine if there were pro-slavery members on this forum. My stance is that it's a complete waste of time to argue with these people. It would pollute our space with the delusion that both sides of this "debate" are legitimate.

 

I think most of us would agree that bans of racist and violent speech are appropriate. I'm drawing a new, firmer line in the sand.

 

No racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, climate change denial, fascism, crypto-fascism, antisocial bigotry, or far-right bullshit in general (including QAnon and Pizzagate lunacy).

 

There are plenty of other reactionary ashcans on the Internet for these "very fine folks" to brigade.

 

Speech is not harmless. Speech has real, immediate, direct, material consequences on other human beings. Implicitly allowing socially toxic rhetoric to continue platforming itself unchecked in a space, poisons that space, and disproportionately harms the least powerful.

 

> This is a slippery slope, where will it end?

 

Fully automated luxury gay space communism, obviously. You should probably leave now before the communism and gay-stuff starts happening. 🍆💦

 

> This seems exclusionary and mean.

 

It's exclusionary and not nice, but I don't think it's mean, at least not senselessly.

 

Ask yourself, how many thoughtful, gracious members of this forum have quietly left after seeing relatively uncontested right-wing bullshit plastered across the forums here? I'm aware of several personally.

 

And I don't think the bullshit here is undisputed because of implicit support. I think it's merely sidestepped for the same reason most reasonable people avoid challenging someone screaming evangelical diatribes on the subway. It's literally just not worth the effort. i.e., "the amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."

 

There's plenty of other subways on the internet to scream inside. This one is no longer tolerating right-wing bullshit.

 

> Are we abandoning confused people who maybe need this forum the most?

 

Meh. I think this question comes from a decent place. But this isn't a political education forum. My stance is that we need to reestablish a bare minimum baseline of shared values.

 

> Are you still with me?

 

If so, that must mean:

1. You weren't asked to leave.
2. You think it's okay and even very good that I've gone full heruka.

Welcome! I'm delighted to have you here. I hope you'll stay. ❤️

 

And I hope you'll stand in solidarity with me as I perch precariously on this fraught limb I've now climbed out on. It's my sincere hope that we can reclaim and reenchant The Dao Bums as a weird-left-friendly space again.

 

> Will you help me?

 

I do need your help. In fact I won't be able to do this without you. Please PM me if you're interested in helping our community. There will be free snacks. 🙃

 

With Love,

Sean

 

 

You finally got there. Much appreciated.

 

[moment]

12 minutes ago, s1va said:

 

Those that were part of the staff in the last three years will know the amount of time, dedication and hard work that Karen put forth (behind the scenes) as a moderator in this site to fulfill the user requests and to uphold the rules were instrumental for this forum to function (day to day).  I want to thank Karen on behalf of all users of TDB. It is very sad indeed that the owner whom many of us do not know or ever interacted with would suddenly show up and without interacting with the current staff just act and make authoritative decisions overlooking the rules and terms set forth and summarily discard the current staff in a post like this.  Owner has the right to run his/her site anyway they want, but to suddenly show up after years, taking actions disregarding the rules and terms set forth for the site, to not reply back or answer questions from current staff members or show any gratitude towards the people that were maintaining/running this site in the owner's absence all seem pretty rude and to be stemming from some ignorant bias, blinded by some extreme idealogies leaning towards some side or 'ism'.  Sadly none of this is consistent the with the principles of Dao which is part of the name of this site.

 

I was one of the moderators from the staff that was discarded.  But, I was not active here recently (past 3 months) due to personal reasons.  I was very happy to receive the news that I am not a moderator anymore for whatever reason.  I was going to ask daweii to replace me with someone that can actually spend time moderating here.   I was sickened by the political bickering in this site (right or left, doesn't matter) and stayed away from it, even as a moderator only tending to other duties as I can.  

 

I do not have strong political inclinations and otherwise not bothered personally by any of Sean's messages or actions though I do not agree with them.  I will continue to be here to see where all this goes.  I like some of the other members and I have some very good friends in this site.  This is the reason why I was here and I will continue to be here.  If many or all of those leave, there will be no reason for me to be here, not that it should matter to anyone.

 

The last two months or so Kar3n had started making snide negative remarks about people she did not agree with or like.  I found that unacceptable for a moderator.

[Apech]

1 minute ago, moment said:

 

The last two months or so Kar3n had started making snide negative remarks about people she did not agree with or like.  I found that unacceptable for a moderator.

 

 

How about some good grace - she was a volunteer for a very difficult job.

[moment]

33 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

How about some good grace - she was a volunteer for a very difficult job.

 

She worked hard indeed. She also attacked several people on this site for no reason other than she did not like them, me included.  You will notice that I have no warnings, suspensions, etc.  The attacks were personal (yet done as a moderator) without warning and left no warning.  I spoke the truth here, I was not mean so, my conclusion is: You are being over-sensitive.  I will not discuss this with you or anyone else further because that would be ungraceful.

Edited July 30, 2019 by moment

[chi 2012]

Fuck Trump

[ralis]

I have pondered for several weeks if I should post this or not, but the time is right for it.

 

For ones that honestly believe that absolute free speech is harmless,  take a moment and engage in self reflection/awareness. Words matter as I have repeatedly stated!

 

A very good friend of ours lives next door, is very well educated, MD, PhD, from one of the top universities in the world. She is Jewish and is frightened/terrified of who may come after her because she is Jewish. Which is exactly what she told us over dinner a few months ago. I am not going to belabor this at all, but for many that believe that bigoted speech is absolute, then know that many don't feel safe in this toxic Trump environment here in the U.S.

 

Anyone that claims the path of Buddhism, Taoism or any other ism and has no awareness of the effects of speech and resulting actions on others is in name only. Honestly, I don't know why you are here!