Beast Mayhem had never really been a place that I had frequented too often. For someone as serious-minded as myself when it came to Transformers, I had always felt oddly out of place posting in the forum, almost the way I do in high school when attending certain parties. But I was a member of the Council, and as such I felt a responsibility every now and again to dart in and lurk at least a little bit. It made me feel like I wasn't separating myself from those I was supposed to help govern despite of the seemingly endless amount of work I had to do.
One day, I stumbled across a thread entitled "God hates me ." and for whatever reason, I clicked on it. In that thread, a user going under the alias of Richard Nixon (I believe his actual username was Krumph or some such thing) decided to post an image showing a Jesus figure performing rectal intercourse on another man wearing a shirt that said "Humanity" with the caption: "God's relationship with Mankind." Now I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not the funniest guy in the world and don't really "get" gutter humor too well, but as a Catholic I was offended at the sight of a figure that a substantial chunk of our community revered being portrayed in a way I found highly offensive. After typing up a reply explaining that while I didn't want to step on the toes of Darth Nuriko (the Allspark's Mayhem moderator and leader of the Cult of Nuriko webclan), I found the image offensive and requested that Richard Nixon edit it. I then left Mayhem, thinking little more of incident other than that Richard Nixon would be reasonable and alter the message.
Boy was I wrong. Over the next twenty-four hours, the Council received a message from Darth Nuriko explaining that it wasn't stepping on her toes to alter an image that she herself (I believe a non-Christian) found offensive and the rest of the Council, Christian or otherwise, agreed that such images had no place on a board where children were prone to frequent. Ignoring the issues of disrespecting a religious figure aside, I see no reason why the potential should exist for children to learn about rectal intercourse, oral sex, anal sex, et al, on a board designed to discuss a children's toyline and television series. Another non-TF parastate leader, Mopedicon, had recently decided to establish a "mature posters only" forum to discuss such issues, and if people found such an urge to post or talk about such things I saw no reason why they couldn't go there with a few clicks of their mouse. No one at the Allspark would have taken such actions personally, any more than Burger King would fault someone for going to Red Lobster to get some quality seafood. Different boards are designed for the discussion of different topics, and I felt that sexual explicit portrayals, especially of a figure I revere as Deity, had no place on the Allspark.
Evidently, Richard Nixon disagreed.
His response was a rather public way of verbally displaying the middle finger to the Council and, among other things, claimed that the Council of Elders was puritanical, violating his First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and had an overdue amount of Christian influence within it and needed to conduct its decisions in a manner more attuned to the "will of the people" (i.e. in conjunction with his own decisions). Of course, I'm expressing his beliefs in terms far kinder than those he used at the time. But, for whatever the reason, he managed to display himself as an impassioned champion of liberty fighting against the tyrannical Council. This sort of "underdog appeal," or a belief in the truth of the cause of the rebel simply because they were the rebel, is one that nearly every Allspark has attempted to utilize to their advantage at one point or another, with varying degrees of success. While it does nothing to prove or disprove the causes of various dissenters (and keep in mind that I myself have been a dissenter on the occasion), I still fail to grasp the appeal of judging an issue of whether or not it exists as an individual against an institution.
The radical dichotomy of "good dissenter vs. bad Council," in any event, is likely Richard Nixon's single greatest achievent. The institutional leadership was almost always bad or repressive under this viewpoint, except for Optimus87, who was held in the highest esteems as he was both the founder and the legal owner of the board. And of course, anyone who followed this dichotomy always knew that Optimus87 would ultimately side with him in the end, as he could not possibly side with the same people he had entrusted the running of his creation to.
To answer Richard Nixon's various charges against the Council (as I and others have time and time again), the Allspark leadership at that time was incredibly moderate in its general administration of the board and was generally more than happy to let the people in Mayhem live and let live under Darth Nuriko's stewardship (later this changed). The worst things ever got in those days was minor editing for swear words among regular posters and trolls were generally dispatched without protest. The only puritanical oppression that existed at that time was only in the minds of those who claimed it, rather like bin Laden's claim that the US government secretly controls Saudi Arabia when we can't even convince King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah not to have an eleven hour telethon for the families of suicide bombers. There's simply no pleasing some people.
The whole claim that the Bill of Rights somehow apply (or should) on Internet is a dubious one at best. Yet that is exactly what many people think when it comes to the First Amendment, the pseudo-sacred principle of far too many civil activists. Ignoring the fact that the First Amendment in of itself has numerous limitations (slander, libel, blockbusting, incitement to riot, disorderly conduct, ad infinitum) under US law (and, I assume, British and Canadian as well), it is extremely humorous to note that the idea that the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights apply online has never been taken to its logical extremes.
Here are some examples:
I. Two posters are filling a thread devoted to the discussion of a topic with a personal conversation. A moderator tells them to take it to E-Mail. Their right to peaceably assemble has arguably been violated.
II. A group of private users decide to form a hacking guild with the intention of using it against possible enemies of the board. An admin tells them that their board will not be used as a platform for such an organization. Their Second Amendment right to maintain a well-regulated militia has arguably been violated.
III. The entire concept of board moderators in the absence of a flame war is a violation of the Third Amendment.
IV. The idea of tracing a troll utilizing multiple identities through IP numbers is arguably a violating of the Fourth Amendment right to be secure in one's person.
V. The idea of arbitrarily banning a banished troll who returns to cause trouble under an alternate ID is arguably a violation of the Fifth Amendment right not to be held accountable for infamous crime unless on the indictment
of a Grand Jury.
VI. The idea of private talks among the administrators on whether or not to ban a troll is an arguable violation of the Sixth Amendment right to due process as well as to be able to face one's accuser.
VII. The idea of forcing a banned individual to make an apology for their actions is arguably a violation of the Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishments.
Amazing what those other rights state, isn't it? Yet why is it that they are never cited in any number of controversies? Indeed, so long as the First Amendment injunction on freedom of speech is preserved, it would seem that the rest of the Bill of Rights can go to hell in a handbasket. It seems never to have struck many of these civil libertarians that perhaps there is more than one amendment for a reason, yes?
More to the point, people often act as though the First Amendment possesses a uniform interpretation in the US law. It does not, as any lawyer can tell you, which is why we have judges and the Supreme Court. The courts define what the laws do or do not mean, and in the absence of a court system, the Council is the ultimate Ezboard parastate authority on whether or not an action violates the right to freedom of speech. And the answer was, at least in Richard Nixon's case, that freedom of speech can exist quite comfortably on a children's board in the absence of images of religious figures in compromising positions.
To answer Richard Nixon's third claim, the Council of Elders never had a monopoly of Christians (conservative or otherwise) within it at any period in the Allspark's history. In point of fact, Nixon's chief opponent (other than myself) and primary executive of the Council at that time, Maximal General Proudwolf, was a self-professed believer in Native American spiritualism. The Council has enjoyed a wide range of religious pluralism and has had conservative Protestants, Catholics, Neopagans, agnostics, atheists, and very likely other belief systems within its ranks. The whole argument that the Allspark leadership at any time possessed some kind of vague bias towards Christians or the conservative Christian worldview should be shot down in the fact that we saw no problem with appointing self-professing gay men (as though we'd have some other way to identify them online), Neopagans, atheists, and agnostics to positions of authority within the Allspark hierarchy. Our general position was (and hopefully, still is) that religious beliefs are irrelevant so long as one is willing to give the position their best shot. I am biased towards fellow Catholics, perhaps, but I am biased towards capable people far more.
As Proudwolf attempted to break the news that the Council had unanimously voted to ban Richard Nixon, Vector Sigma (henceforth referred to as Kalidor) began an impassioned plea to rescind the ban, Proudwolf faced him down in a verbal confrontation that had been building for several weeks. Kalidor fully believed that the Council's actions were nothing less than censorship, whereas Proudwolf (himself a father) felt that such material had no place on a children's board. At the time, most of the Council regarded it as little more than a minor spat that would quickly blow over.
We had absolutely no idea how far that conflict would eventually go.
