Strawman. FR is privately owned. Do you not believe in the right of private property owners to dictate what is permissible on their property so long as no laws are violated?
I do believe in the right of private property. I
own private property. But my home is not a
limited liability corporation, technically speaking or speaking otherwise.
And, there's also a
doorbell.
Unless the doorbell is rung or a prior invitation extended, nobody has the right to enter my property.
And---big
and---I don't tell people whom I invite to my home what to think or how to think.
If such a person turns out to be a bigot, or can barely speak two sentences without showing
a potty mouth, his or her first welcome into my home will also be their last. That's what a
doorbell (or a prior invitation) does for you.
If I own my house but there is no doorbell, gate, or door, then I'm the jerk for failing to
control access to my home.
If you argue FR as private property and not the LLC it actually is, it would be a private
property without a doorbell, gate, or door. The pay-to-play concept would secure FR's
private property position and serve as all three. As it is now and has been long established,
anyone could walk right in, sit right down, and chatter. If Lord Jim really wants nothing
but an echo chamber, he ought to declare it actual private property accessible by paid
membership alone. It would save him and his minions much aggravation, they could
rant their heads off on behalf of their chosen echo, and be done with the dilemna of
a discussion forum as (technically) an LLC---not to mention that of resembling stark
hypocrites exercising their own kind of censorship on a forum the first part of whose
name is
free.
Had the doorbell been installed from the outset, FR would have a far better (if equivalently
distasteful) standing to control not just who is welcome in the house but what they are or
are not allowed to express while guests. And such guests would be equally free to demur
and leave. Neither would be wrong to do so.
