Shambles, you have mis-stated Joe's description of current reality, and then suggested a debate that is founded on the non-reality that your position and Joe's are mutually exclusive-- as if there is a battle necessary.

In fact there is no battle, nor need there be. People are free here to post whatever and however they wish, and there is nothing preventing that. As each post passes into the memory of the database Max maintains here-- the database of threads and posts-- it sometimes undergoes changes to take what was evanescent, transitory, and store it as a functional resource.

In other words, what happens in the "NOW" is based on free choice, but as posts pass from "now" into "The Past," there is some organizing applied so that as people come looking for things, they can be found with some degree of logic and clarity.

Your statement of Joe's position makes him out to be a demigod. He's not-- he's a man who's been entrusted with a job to do, and he does it like a human being, warts and all. To treat him as if he's the man who singlehandedly and capriciously forced you into PELs is not only wrong, it's inaccurate.

~Susan