The latest "banning" (NYC_SKP) is an interesting lesson on REPUTATION.

[JDPriestly]

369. If people stopped answering my comments, I'd shut up. I just feel like I have to respond to all the

good people.

We are all trying to do the right thing for our world and for each other. And we are all learning.

For me this is a question of what the boundaries are, whether they are consistent as to what we can express and what we should keep to ourselves on DU. It would be a dull place if no one ever made any silly jokes.

But then we have to consider the line between a silly joke and a degrading expression or remark. It can be hard to decide where that line is. I think as I said that it would have been good to remove the post but leave NYC_SKP on the board and then maybe post a notice that we should be careful about insults that have sexual or gender connotations about candidates. We should all be careful about each others' feelings.

One Hillary fan posted a few lines from the article that Bernie wrote in the 1970s about women's liberation. The lines she posted gave the impression that Bernie was some sort of sex extremist and some sort of woman hater. That for me was far more sinister than what NYC_SKP did and not just because I am a big Bernie fan. The post by the Hillary fan was completely misleading.

If I read an insult or a joke that can be viewed as an insult, I judge the person who wrote the insult more harshly than the person being insulted if I think there is no reason for the insult. But if I read lines quoted from an article that suggest the article is about something that it is not really about, then I can be mislead and that is very unfair.

Hillary is a refined, well educated woman. We all know that. We are trying to choose the best Democratic candidate we can find. Each candidate has good qualities and bad qualities. But it is unfair to misrepresent the candidates or their writings or statements, far more unfair than to just throw some stupid epithet at them that has no meaning in reality but is rather just hot air.

This is a serious business. We really need the best candidate we can get. Apparently we have four contenders. Let's give each one due consideration, their policy proposals, their donors, their backgrounds, their personal lives, their philosophies, their personalities, their appearances (counts little to DUers but a lot to most non-DUers), their voides, everything. We want to choose a candidate who will do two things: 1) win and then 2) strongly lead the country in the right direction.

If we make a mistake and get bogged down in petty issues like what word is used about this one or that one, we will divide ourselves irreparably and lose the 2016 election. We cannot afford that.

So let's be tolerant of each other's mistakes as we go along. The stakes are very high, and we are all likely to be emotional at moments.