As I posted here yesterday, the SC Progressive Network‘s web site and this blog were hacked twice recently, resulting in our site being down for several days. Both times, the site had to be restored, and some files were lost in the shuffle. Three blog comments were among them, but have since been retrieved. I’m posting them below, hoping to clear up any confusion among those frustrated that their comments disappeared.
Comment on More anti-choice BS
by Lisa Krempasky
Gosh, I had a comment here pointing out extensive flaws in your post. You deleted it. Hmmm….wonder why. If my arguments were wrong why did you not refute them?Comment on More anti-choice BS
by Becci
Your post was not removed; our site has been hacked — twice in a week — and we’ve lost files. If you care to repost, please do. Your comments are welcome, but I won’t engage you in debate, as I find it pointless arguing with people who use God as a political tool. I visited your site, so I have a clue how you’ve derived your ideology. You are entitled to your views, of course, but please don’t impose them on me or other women who believe differently.Comment on More anti-choice BS
by Tina Luna
Lisa in my experience blogs like this are not looking for facts or the truth but are just pushing an agenda. Anyone that puts light on the facts would in anyway refute their ultimate goal of pushing their false premise must be silenced. These same people that always cry for free speech in fact are for censoring speech when it disagrees with them.
For the record, this site does not — and will not — censor anyone’s comments, unless they are threatening or clearly offensive (not just obnoxious). To date, we have not done so. To see examples of postings that we’d remove if we believed in that sort of thing, see our YouTube channel here.
Much as we may disagree with some of those comments, we believe in open and free dialogue. We sometimes wish the comments were more respectful, but it is not our job to police what people say.
To those who want to add their two cents on this blog, you should know that certain words will divert your comment into the spam queue until it gets admin approval. That may take several hours, so if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, please be patient; it eventually will be posted. That is probably what happened to William Hamilton yesterday. He made a comment that was flagged as spam, and posted a second comment making the same point. Both comments were retrieved from the spam queue and posted.
We encourage folks to share their thoughts here and on YouTube, and welcome divergent perspectives. We also welcome any essays, videos or photos you think might be of interest to the progressive community in South Carolina. Send items you wish to share to becci@scpronet.com.
Finally, a big thanks to our tech wizard, Steve Hait, for getting our web site up and running after both hack jobs, and for working to make the site more secure.
Becci Robbins
SC Progressive Network Communications Director
Charleston Teabaggers Should Wake Up and Smell the Coffee Instead
On Wednesday several gatherings will be held in Charleston to protest our Nation’s system of taxation using teabags. I and my fellow liberals are glad Republican Conservatives are having some fun participating in the process of public, political dialogue with a little stunt. After all, last week we were camping out at “Sanfordville” a tent city protest in Columbia raising awareness about how the Governor’s blocking stimulus money endangers our schools and universities. I always envy European protest with their costumes, street theater, floats and stunts. All political life shouldn’t be Power Point driven policy debates.
I would however suggest that next time the Republican’s Google the name they give their protest to avoid the excess baggage “Teabagging” brings to their event.
Jokes aside, however, these are serious times. Intellectual self indulgence can’t coexist with making the complex decisions our nation must make to survive the massive economic and environmental changes which threaten to overtake the United States. We’re no longer rich enough, powerful enough or far enough away to survive the consequences of large scale mistakes. A big part of being a grown up is recognizing that the bills have to be paid.
America has spent most of the last thirty years ignoring those costs. We haven’t accepted the costs of weaning ourselves off foreign oil. We’ve ignored the increasing burdens our lifestyle places on the Earth’s ecosystem. We’ve allowed our healthcare system to become too expensive for tens of millions of Americans. Education has fallen behind rising world standards. We’ve supported, accidently and on purpose, oppressive governments around the world and reaped a rising tide of resentment. Our efforts to change some of those regimes have been clumsy and lethally incapable of recognizing how different the values of other countries may be. We are now 300 million people on an Earth crowded with over 6 billion and leveled by technology and mobility.
Hardest of all, we’ve been unable to recognize that the waste and indulgence of the twenty five years which followed WWII were the result of a unique and limited set of historic opportunities. We no longer have the power and money to force all of humanity to do our will. Neither does any other one nation. We have plenty and we can be safe. We just can’t waste as much as we want and be careless.
Nobody wants to pay taxes, in the Lowcountry or anywhere else. However taxes fund the schools our children attend, the Universities which maintain our national competitiveness and agencies which protect the purity of our food and water. The anarchistic fantasy that we would all be ok growing our own food and owning our own automatic weapons in a world without government is the delusion of a society which would be starving to death in a week if Piggly Wiggly and the other supermarkets closed. We depend on a complex, organized society to survive. Sophisticated, well funded Government is an essential component of that society. The alternative is the chaos of a failed state like Somalia. Few teabaggers would trade their taxed real estate in the SC Lowcountry for oceanfront property in that part of Africa.
Last weekend, those two views of the universe were tested. Somalia’s pirate economy, armed with automatic weapons, satellite telephones and unburdened by Government regulation sent a boat load of desperate and greedy young men out to capture an American containership. The United States responded from halfway around the earth and space with the world’s most powerful military and intelligence systems. Three American warships arrived, equipped and manned to respond. They were in communication with the highest levels of their Government and able to monitor all the communication of their opponents. Three pirates died. The American Captain went home safe to his family.
More importantly, the young people of the United States can choose to go to College or work rather than climb into a motorboat with a machine gun to attempt to extort their future. Because we pay taxes, we can protect our citizens on the seas and offer a better future to our children.
That doesn’t come cheap and I’ll wince when I write this year’s check, but it is a better value than most of us will admit it is. I wouldn’t trade my tax bill for that of a Somali.
Kudos to Becci and the S.C. Progessive Network. Keep hitting them with facts. Hey Lisa, feel free to visit some truth – http://buyingsc.blogspot.com/
Jamie I went to your site and see that you do not allow comments to refute your claims. Too bad. I don’t know anything about your topic expect what you write, but there are logic flaws I would like to address.
Becci, since my comments were hacked at least twice now I don’t have the time to keep recreating them. I do appreciate your stated position that you are not censoring them. But maybe that was the hackers job because my substantive comments still have not been retrieved while favorable ones never were removed. I do not wish hacking on anyone and I sincerely hope you will not be victimized again. I just don’t want my silence or non-response to be taken as anything more than it is … tired of recreating the comments only to have them removed even though you may not have intended the removal. Thank you for retrieving what you could and reposting them.
Lisa, your original comment is still posted, it’s just too old to appear in the sidebar with the latest comments. To access your first comment, click on the comment button under the “More Anti-Choice BS” post, where you left your first comment.
Becci,
I appreciate the work you are doing on the blog and the effort you make to have everyone heard regardless of her/his views. Keep up the good work, folks like you are an inspiration to many who feel that do not have a voice.
ehh… 10x 🙂