I still feel that way. There are some things that really are matters of life and death, and this isn't one of them.

Perhaps this can be first explained to those who have volunteered to impose pedantic protection measures upon us and in a manner that suggest that these and the imposition of non-exsistent rules, are a matter of life and death?

Sometimes it is difficult to see if something is a matter of life or death. Or when it can grow to be that. Elephants know the things to avoid and to protect their young from. Short of falling down a ravine the world does not present too many obvious natural dangers to an adult elephant - who may as result become a little complacent about their own welfare. However, the smallest insect bite or even smallest bacteria, infecting the smallest scratch - may prove to be a matter of life or death and enough to bring the biggest and proudest to their demise.

That is why human beings think that mass immunisation of perfectly healthy individuals ls - is a matter of life or death. But even then - this is not generally thought necessary to impose upon people against their wishes, even if we may feel it is for their own good.

And many of us still set about doing something about matters that they accept may not be matters of life and death - but they still matter. I tend to have more respect for those who are doing what they think best (even if I may disagree with them) than those who do nothing but pass complacent judgement from on high (on one side only) and who feel that this is a respectable position.   

It is I agree, a matter of proportion. Many (if not all) of the current protection measures are completely out of proportion to the nature of the problem. You have only to look at the words used, to see this. Words like counter-attack, danger, defend, harm and even worse have all routinly been used to justify these measures. And those who do not consider all this to be propotionate are accused of over-reation!!!!

For the point of digging-up this thread is simply to point out that there are NO RULES TO BE IMPOSED! However, that is not the same as not abiding by those we feel are sensible and proportionate to an open discussion forum.

The regular judgement and imposed closure or deltion of entire threads because of a few that may be judged too offensive to remain - because the volunteer does not see that they should make the effort to edit only the offinding contribution - is NOT proportionate.