A cautionary tale…

So there is this local website that has grown up along the US 285 corridor called “Pinecam.” It was originally set up as a webcam by a guy named Wayne Harrison (I think). He put the webcam up with some content like the temperature and local fire warnings, along with some basic messaging capability.

Well, one year the fires in the mountains were out of control and Pinecam became a really great resource for keeping track of where the fires were and what the authorities wanted citizens to do and lots of other very valuable community services. Wayne became something of a local celebrity and was regarded as a local hero.

As a result his traffic jumped. In fact it jumped so much that he set up more sophisticated messaging software and pretty soon had a very vibrant little online community going. Over time it’s original purpose has become overshadowed by its message board functions and it became a sort of local virtual gathering place.

I joined, as did most local folks with computers, and eventually I began posting in the message boards, particularly in an area called “The Study” that was supposedly a “no-holds barred” message area to discuss politics and religion and other controversial subjects. For a couple of years I was a pretty heavy poster there, in fact that was in large part what led me to set up this blog. Because the site was overrun with moonbat liberals. Most of the moderators had classic Bush Derangement signature lines like “Bush Lied and People Died.”

Of course I couldn’t allow such things to go unchallenged, so I sought out Mr. Harrison himself and we had a long private message conversation about how ethical it was to call people “moderators” who not only used their position to attack their political opponents and to inflame the debate, but actually used their power to actively censor opinions on the other side. Over time he and I managed to agree and disagree on many subjects, but overall I think my intervention did actually have a positive effect when Wayne decided that I was right about overt political statements and overt political censorship being something the moderators were not allowed to do. More than a few moderators resigned over this, by the way, and I made some life-long enemies. But those are the kind of enemies I appreciate having, frankly.

Anyway it is probably something of an understatement to say that I developed a reputation on Pinecam as being one of the few conservative voices who could debate against a dozen liberals and win more often than not. I even developed a bit of a fan club.

But as I said, I started this blog, and I decided that Pinecam was never going to change from what is basically a highly moonbat infested website whose moderators routinely abuse their power to force their point of view on the reading public. So I more or less stopped going there.

But I visited it and on occasion I would post a message. Even though it’s been three years at least since I was an active poster there, my reputation with the long-term members and moderators has never really changed. And I have made it a point to identify those times when I think the moderators are abusing their power and have continued to post messages that the liberals on the board in particular find difficult to accept. I have been threatened several times with banning.

Well tonight I got banned. And here is why. It’s really downright funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Someone posted a message about a dead cat on highway 285. A few people responded with the suggestion that cat owners should make sure their cats are inside the house for their own safety. Well, a few months ago there was a very hot thread about cat owners letting their cats roam free in the neighborhood and I had posted my opinion of owners of cats who allow their cats to roam free to annoy and harass their neighbors. In effect I told them that doing so was an act of supreme selfishness because their cats don’t care whose window they are under when they appease their feline urges at 3:00 in the morning. Of course this angered a lot of selfish cat owners who routinely let their cats wander the neighborhood. Some of whom were moderators.

Well when this post came up and people were suggesting that cats stay inside to not get run over, I pointed out that I had made exactly the same suggestion but was attacked by the “in crowd” as being unfair to cat owners. But now that one was dead, my suggestion suddenly made a lot of sense.

Well, this angered a dude named “Lazierfan” who responded with a lame message about “feral cats” and “ranch cats” as if either were relevant. He ended his message with a sarcastic comment about how he was in awe of my ability to distinguish house cats from feral cats. So I responded to him saying that I appreciated his great admiration of my visual skills, but that it wasn’t really that hard to spot a collar and tag on a cat under my window with a flashlight at 4:00 in the morning, and the last time I checked, feral cats didn’t wear collars.

Well this set him off and he began instant messaging me about how I was being “insensitive” in a “mourning post.” So we traded a few barbs back and forth privately and he threatened to report me to the moderators, to which I said: “Knock yourself out.” He came back with a sneering post telling me that the moderators had deleted my comments since they were not appropriate to a “mourning post.” To which I responded that he and the moderators were seriously trivializing true mourning if they were calling a post about a road killed cat that nobody claimed ownership of a “mourning post.” I told him that he and the moderators were in serious need of some basic human perspective.

So they banned me. Just like that.

So, what do you think, is that appropriate? Did I deserve to be banned?

I have to say that I don’t care much one way or the other, the site has devolved into a little moonbat Peyton Place of rumor, innuendo, gossip and solidarity among the liberal clique that has always run the place. And of course that’s why they really banned me is because I tend to point out their actions when they fall into those habits, and they don’t like being called out on it. But what do you think?