Dear Mark;
As a general rule I do not like when individuals place their resume before beginning a letter, although, I believe in this case it is warranted and I apologize for doing so. I am a 6 year Navy veteran. I was promoted to E-6 in 5.5 years (Petty Officer First Class). I've been to the Persian Gulf on two occasions, as well as several other deployments. I originally grew up as a dairy farmer in upstate New York. I now go to college for Economics at Bard College in Dutchess County, NY.
I recently posted a comment under the section "With Love, From Daily Kos". Assuming you and your staff are busy people; I decided to give the comment a day or two to see if it was posted and it was not. I would like to know why it was not posted. This post is about more then just the comment, which is why I am sending this to you.
(More bellow the fold)
I explicitly made an effort to put forth my own thought without at the same time being harsh, cruel, profane, or uninformed. I strongly believe for any logical discourse in the world of politics to be pursued the discourse can only be of a civil nature.
In general, I do not agree with around half or more of what is posted and said at dailyKos (that is an eyeball estimate). However, I still read the articles posted (although, I have only responded once). I digest what is said, weigh the options, and decide if the poster has grasped some truth which I have yet to grasp. Sometimes, I might agree with a poster and yet his logic is so flawed I can not follow the argument from one sentence to another, and others I am strongly against a position and yet I find I may need to reevaluate my own position, or at least how I arrived at such a position. Recently in fact, just such an article has been posted by Obama which then spawned a strong debate on all sides of the debate.
Unfortunately, at your site, I can not participate in this debate which is unfortunate both to me and to your regular readership. There is another article posted more recently about a poster who is giving up on the dailykos world "Goodbye Cruel World" and who is calling for a violent revolution. Unfortunately or fortunately, such people do visit the Kos community. However, you (I say "you" because you are the editor and ultimately responsible for the material posted) postulated "Does this particular Kos writer speak for 100% of the left?" Although your question was answered in the following text, the answer to that same question is answered in two more ways which are obvious to the reader. 1.) Kos is an open community and nearly anyone can post their thoughts VIA the diary system. People are then free to agree/disagree with their thoughts. Diaries are not cannon for the democratic movement, but rather, a forum for people to discuss their views... however mundane or radical. 2.) Closely linked to the above, the posters at dailyKos posted their own sentiments in regards to the reader and the majority disagreed.
You advocate for the left to purge all such people from their ranks. Even though I strongly disagree with the poster in question, I equally feel he should, if he so wishes, have the right to voice his own thoughts without being persecuted. He may be wrong on many fundamental levels, however, that does not give me or anyone else within that community the right to stifle their sovereign rights. After all, what sort of society would we live in if we only allowed members of specific sort of thought into our club? In danger of sounding cliché, this is exactly what Orwell warned against when referring to the "thought police".
In the end, this is your site and you will guide her through the sea of conservatism as you see fit. I am asking you to reverse your editorial policy of "selecting" which commentators to post and which not to. Granted, I am making an assumption that I was "selected" out, however, noting the few commentators whose posts I did see were not very articulate I can only assume they were cherry picked. I could be wrong, of course. Although, judging by the comments at the kos diaries section (people who said they posted) There are extremely intelligent people on all sides of the argument and I can only hope those people can have a dialogue.
Thank you for your time.