Title: More censorship on the Nova-Roma list IV
Date: Monday, July 31, 2006
Time: 4:34 PM

[continuing the post which began here]


To wrap this up - I could go into a lot more detail, but courtesy of Blogger troubles I've been at this terminal far longer than I intended to be today, and I have things to do. Typical of what followed was the incredible commentary by "A. Apollonius Cordus" to the effect that the insane and abusive behavior seen out of the mods and membership of Nova Roma, set off by nothing particularly unreasonable or even unusually unfriendly on my part, was in fact sane and decent because the Nova Roman senate had written passages into the Nova Roman constitution making it so. Reality being defined by resolution? One may well ask, is there no escaping Postmodernism these days? Answer: Not if you're hanging around with Pagans.

At this point, I decided that I had finally had one too many good deed of mine fail to go unpunished, and that I had had enough. I sent an announcement to the list mentioning the Colosseum, reminding people that it was there for general use, but that aside from that I would appreciate it if the membership of Nova Roma would please leave me out of their disputes in the future. Beautifully illustrating the truth of the old online maxim that "the regulars are nothing more than the trolls who got there first", Tiberius (the corrupt mod we've been talking about) couldn't pass up the opportunity to edit my post (I was still on moderation) and stick his words under my name in a completely arrogantly gratuitous show of condescension.

He picked a fight just for the sake of picking a fight, at a time when he could have been reasonably be expected to know that I would be feeling outraged by what he and his partners had just done and by the tone of much of what I was hearing, from people who seriously expected me to be suggestible enough to be intimidated by their made-up titles held in their made-up country. "Do you know who you are talking to?" "Why, yes I do - a socially maladjusted geek with a website and a few free mailing lists, who doesn't know which millenium he is living in." Get over it, kids. You're nobody.

Re: My take on Appius, edited post Moderators Note:

Yes this is your last post on Appius. Please move on to another subject say the 2nd Punic War and it effect on wine prices, Hannibal’s effect on Roman children down through the ages, the size of a Roman legion Republican vs Imperial Cokeus vs Pepsius

Vale

Tiberius Galerius Paulinus
Praetor


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Oh, one last note on this subject, assuming that Maior's latest bit of crankery gets nowhere ... not that I'm sure of that ...

I don't know where Appius got the idea that I was some kind of court of appeals for Nova Roman decisions that he didn't care for, but I'm not and have never pretended to be. The yahoogroup I mentioned (HPGripe) is for everybody's use should they feel the need in such a case, but aside from that, if you guys have a war, please leave me out of it.

I'm Switzerland, and hope that my paternal grandmother will forgive me for saying that. Know what I mean? I'm neutral and would ask any future combatants to respect the fact that the only side I favor is that of free communication and justice, however that turns out. The Colosseum was set up as an adult list so that we could walk off and leave it unmoderated and mainly ignored, while others use it so they feel the need. Good enough? Because henceforth, it has to be. I've had enough of this (excrement).



Antistoicus

Keep in mind that as this is going on, the members of the Nova Roma organization are talking about and taking potshots at Appius without encountering anything other than support from the very same modstaff who supported the above warning by one of their own (Tiberius); the "off-topic" labeling would seem to be something that somebody stuck into his commentary to make it look better on brief quotation. I had already mentioned that I was going to be mentioning this incident on this blog, so Tiberius knew that he was speaking for the camera, one might say, and threw out a misleading soundbite to snare those inclined to snap judgement.

Put this remark into the context of a blatant double standard, with the posts on this very topic by the members of Nova Roma that followed the post quoted above without objection numbering in the dozens if not the hundreds, this topic being revisited without objection from the moderators over and over, through many pages of subsequent archives, and in that context Tiberius' remarks end up being seen in a much different light. The issue isn't people talking about Appius; he has no problem with that. His objection is specifically to my talking about that, to my daring to be heard and not just seen. Elsewhere in the archives one can even find incredible comments to the effect that part of the "modern" conception of nationhood is that only citizens have rights within the boundaries of a nation; that by definition, a non-citizen can not be done an injustice within its borders, and that therefore it was not my place to object to the treatment I was receiving, or to question what my betters were up to. "After all, Antistoicus, we placed a clause into the constitution that says that you don't have the right to talk back, so mind your place boy .... err, I mean, non-citizen". That's actually quite close to what "A. Appollonius Cordus" literally wrote, encountering considerable support as he did so.

My betters? It's a mailing list, people - get a grip. Yes, I've encountered that theory of statehood before, and there's even a word long coined for those who embrace it. They're called "rednecks", and I was familiar with their kind long before Paganism was even an issue in my life. These clowns, having patted themselves on the back for their supposed rejection of racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry, filled the void that this left in their lives by constructing a new brand of prejudice and reacted with the usual redneck's amazement at the observation of how uppity the lower orders insisted on being. I responded to those people the same way I would to an antisemite back when I was stuck in Southern Hoosier Hell, and for the same reason. To do anything else would be to accept the place that somebody else would have the presumption to put me into; demand submission out of me and you're going to get defiance, offered to you with as little respect as your actions showed to me.

I offered the offending parties a few choice words and an anatomically impossible suggestion. One of the mods then wrote, with the level of rationality that I had come to expect from Nova Romans in general, that my use of a bad, bad word had rendered my earlier commentary less sensible than it had been before; sensible people, of course, being those too obsessively concerned with what a powerless group of people think about them to stand up to them, and risk a bigot's disapproval and the perils of being subjected to her brilliant analysis. "1+1=2, unless I don't like you, in which case maybe it's 3". An argument is what it is, and stands or falls on its own merits; to say that one is swayed by one's feelings about the arguer is to confess that one isn't listening to the argument made with an open or a rational mind at all, and most likely that one doesn't have a rational mind to be opened for that or any other purpose.

Yes, I said mean, mean words to these idiots, and I would say them again, even if by doing so I trip across the unexamined cultural prejudices afflicting small minds. You know why? Because while the Nova Romans deserve no consideration from me, the people who are in my real world life do, and that includes myself. After this online character called "Antistoicus" blew off some stream at exactly the people who had angered him, he dissipated his anger before it had a chance to fester, and in doing so dissolved it. This meant that after he got off the computer and turned back into just plain old Joe and headed out for a hike, that he was happier and easier to be around, having dealt with one of the "little murders" in his day. Emily Post would not have approved, but if you've read my site, I think that you know exactly what I think of Emily Post and her writings.

And if you've ever run into anybody from Italy or France, you know that the real descendents of the Romans would agree, by and large.