But placing those restrictions also restrict other debates which cam come about during the course of a thread...

A thread can twist and turn in so many directions...to stomp your foot on the thread's head by reminding everyone of their lack of qualifications in any given subject stifles conversation...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

It should moderate the conversation. Just because you have the right to say anything you want, doesn't mean that you should.

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

But reminding everyone that they are not experts in the topic of discussion is a fine habit if you like to jab pins in balloons all day...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Some people need their balloon popped on occasion. *shrug* If we take this information as a reminder that not all things are so clear cut as some of us try to make it out to be, we'll be on the right track.

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

As an avid fan of balloons, I'd rather see a female sitting on them. But I digress.

I have been on the internet for a long time. I have seen a lot of "stuff" in that time. I used to hang around the usenet and have seen some VERY graphic stuff. And some of it was definitely child porn. I don't know how they might post it there now, but when I was there, files could be listed without any description. I downloaded one of the "Masha" series among other things. That was rampant allover the place back in the late 90's among other seriously twisted child porn. The more twisted, the more likely it would absolutely explode in the usenet. You CAN mistakenly download child porn.

The problem is that this guy actually admitted to downloading child porn intentionally though. That's a nono. If he wanted to do that, I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate organizations that will give him reasonable alternatives to actually downloading porn. Additionally, I just don't buy that excuse. He'd better have a lot of documentation to back it up and a third party that knows about it.