Re: His Highness's New Clothes

[E L Wimett <SILVERDRAGON@Charleston.Net>]

Poster: E L Wimett <SILVERDRAGON@Charleston.Net>

With regard to the storm of commentary that His Highness Logan's comments seems to have sparked:

Some of you have been upset that Tibor or anyone else "corrected" Logan in a manner which you considered discourteous.  If the correction 
was discourteous, it deserved rebuke --- not because Logan is now the Prince of Atlantia, but because it was discourteous.

Others have been freaked not because of the manner of the correction, but because it occurred at all.  In other words, they were buying 
into the idea that nobody has the right to disagree publicly with the Crown Prince simply because he IS the Crown Prince.  

I have real problems with this. It echoes the perverse attitude expressed by some royalty and one Atlantian kingdom seneschal some years 
back that disagreeing publicly with the Crown in Curia is tantamount to treason and a breach of fealty to any peer in fealty to the Crown. 
 I had problems with that idea then (indeed, I feel it is the duty of the populace in general and peers in particular to advise the Crown 
when it is about to ride off that metaphorical cliff) and still do.

Still others took the position that Logan had LESS freedom to express opinion in this forum precisely because he is Crown Prince.

All these positions do less than adequate justice to His Highness (whom I note has gracefully and courteously refrained from entering this 
fray in his own defence). 

One fact that has received insufficient attention:

Derrick Solomon and/or Logan Ebonwoulfe has the SAME RIGHTS as every other member of this forum/list/whatever-you-wish-to-it.  (I very 
nearly "shouted" this.)

He has the same right to speak his mind as you or I.  He became no less a member of our on-line community than anyone else when he became 
Crown Prince.  

While he does not have the right to shout "fire" in a crowded room (i.e., maliciously spread false and dangerous information), neither 
does anyone else.  

He has a perfect right to express his honestly held view and any information that he believes accurate.  If he is in error, he can expect 
to be corrected (and I suspect usually appreciates this as false information on this point in the long run would hurt him more than most 
when he takes the reigns of Atlantian "government").

If this list and others like it customarily react like this to efforts by folk like Logan to participate in our discussions, it is no 
surprise that so few do so.  And it is our loss.

Note that this is not a new phenomenon, though it is a regrettable one.  When I was Laurel Queen of Arms, I regularly participated in 
several on-line fora and often found a <grin> statement I made started a storm of nuclear attacks in my direction.  Had I not been an old 
on-line hand (six years on-line before I became Laurel), I would have retreated from the net with almost indecent haste.

I can only hope that His Highness does NOT take that path.

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