response 79 of 424:

Jan 12 01:02 UTC 2004

I keep reading comments like "the harm to jep from reinstating his items,
even with his posts deleted. is far greater than the harm to others." Yet
know one seems to have any real evidence in support of this premise. For
those of us who disagree, we have been denied access to the very text that
will enable us to make an informed evaluation as to which position is
correct. I swear Grex is beginning to look more and more like the Bush
administration, with such "trust me when I tell you about that which you
cannot be allowed to know" positions.

What I seem to recall, and now cannot confirm, is that jep was cautioned
more than once about what he was doing in terms of publishing his thoughts
and feelings. Now he says " But those items mean something else, too.  I
wouldn't have entered them, or at least wouldn't have said as much in
them, if I'd had appropriate concern for what might come of them some day.
I just *didn't care*.  It seems to me to be pretty harsh to force someone
to have something remain when it was created under those types of
circumstances."

What jep calls "harsh" others might call "expected results." I guess he is
essentially saying that he was temporarily insane and should therefore be
allowed to avoid potentially difficult consequences arising from that
insanity. I question that premise as well. There is a lot of "awfulizing"
going on here, which is a sign of some pretty distorted thinking. So what
if his son someday finds out his dad was distraught over his divorce and
that he cared very much about his son. This is not about protecting jep
from legal liability. This is apparently about making it easier for jep to
avoid a difficult talk with his son. I say deal with it. Jep is going to
have to have lots of hard talks with his son if he is to truly be a good
father. The remote possibility of one more such conversation should not be
creating this kind of controversy. 
 
So once again we are back to the real issues: grex wants a warm fuzzy amd
therefore favors a feel-good approach instead of free speech.  This means
that faced with a hard choice, Grex decides to give extreme weight to the
feelings of a favored user over all others who could possibly benefit from
the words people *other than jep* posted. This is total and utter BS. 

I like jep, and wish him no harm. However, I do not think he is acting
maturely when he causes this kind of harm with such weak justification. 
Again, I see no liability issues. I see a man too cowardly or embarassed
to face the *extrememely remote* possibility he may have to tell his son
"we all make mistakes. I make them too. Here's what I learned from this
one." Please reconsider jep. This does not reflect well upon you at all.