dear MN HQ could you please be so kind as to explain to me publicaly why you allow thread like the super race one

There are no significant differences between someone who is black and someone who is white. Therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding their 'differences'.

A disability does make a significant difference so there is something to discuss.

In fact if you had banned discussion about disability a few decades back there would have been no discussion/legislation in parliment and no resources/help. How would you feel about that?

But you don't mean NO discussion do you. You mean "discussions that don't go the way I want them to"

Yes peachy you must be fair.

But I think discussion/proper debate is so very very important.

Over the years here , through both watching and participating in various discussions/battles/ bloodbaths, I have learnt a lot.

I have looked at my own ideas, some of which I've changed because I hadn't considered a POV until it was voiced on here. Sometimes I come away from a scrap more convinced than ever of my own pov, but each time, whatever the outcome, it makes me think. Each time I am faced with the views and experiences of others and that is so important.

Without discussing matters, especially ones which disgust and upset us, we cannot move forward, cannot hope to show others that there is another way of seeing things.

2shoes, tbh I don't think there should be a line. I think we need to talk about things in the hope that we can shown others why their thoughts are simply unacceptable, don't you?
We need to keep talking, not to turn away from that which we find upsetting and simply 'wrong'

agree with wannabe and peachy.

That's the thing Kitty- it has to be consistent or it sends out a bad message

If you disallow racist threads etc then you must disallow similar ones on other themes and vice versa

I don't know about the otehrs but consistency is what I am after iyswim?

But I still think it's wrong to silence people because of their attitudes and beliefs.

If people express an opinion the you find abhorrent it solves absolutely nothing screaming abuse at them and demanding that they be silenced.

That reaction wouldn't get very far in solving world conflicts. You have to talk and talk calmly. That is the only way to go forward imo and the only way that you can show people how their views might be skewed.

Reacting with pure aggression and anger is scoring an own goal.

No Onager, the reason for saying it isn't that- for a start I am not anti screning- it's the attitudes expressed in posts other than the OP (IIRC the op posyted something later on that made people gasp but can't be sure, my memory fades with advance age!).

PlainOldPeachy, I'm probably one of those that saint2shoes wants to stop posting (though I wasn't planning to bother any more with that that one)

It's about screening/testing for genetic disorders. The reason for saying it's about "killing the disabled" is to make it seem the thread is about rounding them up and shooting them. The News of the World do the same thing to sell papers and the BNP use similar techniques to drum up support for their cause.

I think it's a shame people can't debate properly without resorting to such methods.

Onager have you read all the posts? I think you'll understand why everyone on SN is so upset (well most people- cannot speak for everyone) if you do (didn't read or don't remember Daniel thread however, just most recent).

It's the idea of the healthiest and cleverest (or something like that, can't flick between threads without PC crashing today) that upset people.

Wannabe, in the interests of fairness I went and looked up the Daniel James thread.

Calling assisting an adult who has made a decision to die "the killing and iradication of the disabled" is also inflammatory and inaccurate.

Wannabe, I can't comment on the second one, but I know about the first. Describing the screening for genes which might cause birth defects as "the killing and iradication of the disabled" is inflammatory and inaccurate.

that's awful, i haven't really looked at the thread (yet!)

onager look at the in the news section post entitled "a new super race" where initially the op has suggested "breeding" out disability, in order to create cleverer and stronger humans, .

Look at the thread about Daniel James (will be some months back) where it is suggested that the disabled should be helped to kill themselves over anyone else apart from someone with a terminal illness.

And so on.

Wannabe! has someone suggested killing disabled people. Can we have a quote and a link?

I think saint2shoes is right. People shouldn't be allowed to disagree with her. If they have different opinions then they must be wrong so they should shut up. I don't know what the worlds coming to!

but it's only ever threads like this that are about the disabled that are allowed to stand.

If a similar thread was started about any other subject, if I started a thread saying that gay people shouldn't be allowed too adopt (which is something about which people could have a reasoned debate), or that the mentally ill should be kept locked away (again, a platform for debate, and something which people have differing views on), or that imigrants should all go back to their own countries, the threads would be pulled, without question.

And yet thread after thread and comment after comment about the disabled is allowed to stand unchallenged by authority ie mn hq.

Every time people are allowed to justify the killing and iradication of the disabled, it reiterates that the disabled are still second class citizens in comparison to the rest of the population, and are only here when allowed to be.

I think it is a very dangerous thing to ban the discussion of certain ideas.

All Ideas/pov's NEED to be talked about, however distressing.
They need to be challenged.

OYu can't inform/enlighten someone if you refuse to discuss things with them.

It is one thing to debate differing view points over the benefits of vitamin supplements or disadvantages of bottle feeding.. another to debating the viewpoints held in the OP of that thread!
If you took the argument that is ok to have these "negative comments" as it is part of a reasonable debate, perhaps we could debate whether people who believe in witchcraft in Africa should be allowed to continue burning children or perhaps we could debate whether Asian people are stupid.. fgs, there is debate and there is offensive viewpoints that have no place being aired on a forum such as this. Surely there is a cut off point of what is a reasonable point albeit strongly differing from others, and what is offensive and inappropriate??

I am sorry if I am being a little extreme in this opinion - just suprised that the OP?s viewpoint and some of the other?s in this can be seen as justifiable and reasoned debate. It is not reasoned debate or a fair viewpoint. As Riven has rightly pointed out, there are laws in place concerning hate crimes.

And the problem is as well (IMO) that when some people think we are debating and / or educating, we (as in the SN crowd) got on toher threads and get accused of piing in.... our voice isn't listened to by a definite if select group, its seen as a PITA

electra - after listening to a group of parents in the playground discussing this very issue, unfortunately there are plenty of people out there who think like that ignorant and offensive. In fact, yet another reason I want to move out of this small minded rural backwater!!

I agree with you, Riven. The opinion of the OP starting that thread is just as offensive as a racisit statement.