Six Canadians, who took part in a doomed conversation at the Expat Forum, started the Isaac Brock Society on December 12, 2011, in order to create a safe place to have a discussion about US expat tax issues and renunciation of citizenship. The Expat Forum considered renunciation an extreme measure and began to censor our user-created threads. Furthermore, they were impervious to arguments that there was a need to allow the discussion. Seeing this coming, I made contact with our committee members, suggesting that we create a new blog that would cover our issues and where we, not some disinterested party, would be in control of the parameters of the discussion. Thus, part of the DNA of the Isaac Brock Society is a distaste for censorship.
Over the course of the months, various critics have demanded that I shut down one aspect or another of our conversation . Always I could make the case that the videos, threads or comments were relevant and useful, even if they were objectionable. The committee’s five remaining members have always supported me, until now.
In the last few days, one notorious abuser of our open policy has provoked the ire of not a few. I’ve been in constant discussion over the last three days about the abuse of this policy by the commenter ConfederateH: he has continually ridiculed and mocked other commenters on this website. My view was that we should not worry about the reputation of the website, because we cannot be responsible for the opinion of an idiosyncratic commenter. Yet still, time after time the complaints came to me, and now the committee could not find any justification for retaining CH’s odious comments, and I found myself growing weary of defending what I too found offensive. Then CH showed utter disdain for the rules of decorum in all human society and told another commenter, who justifiably objected to his crass and offensive comments, to “fuck off”. Now, I don’t object out of hand to profanity and have used it in the past. But this is different. This was a direct attack at another and a flaunting of the good graces of the hospitality that the Isaac Brock Society had extended to CH. I am bitterly disappointed in his continually offensive comments, and I began reluctantly to take down certain comments.
Members of our committee and several other bloggers have sent me complaints about CH, in addition to numerous complaints in the comments themselves. I have tried to shrug it off with the following justification: (1) We have our Administrative Notice. No commenter, no matter how stupid or offensive, represents the “Isaac Brock Society” and so it is no reflexion on the website; (2) free speech requires allowing objectionable opinions; (3) CH is a genuine expat whose experience is informative to us; (4) many other much more famous forums and informational websites which allow comments have similarly stupid and offensive comments (see e.g., HuffPost, Zerohedge, Business Insider); (5) no one is forced to read CH’s comments or any comment for that matter.
Yet I must bow to the pressure of the nearly unanimous outrage. I do however grant that this man’s atrocious comments, intentionally mocking and insulting others, is unacceptable in human society. If it is a choice between his company and those who have complained, including members of the committee and several other friends I’ve made through this blog, then it is a not a hard choice at all.
Therefore, I have put CH in moderation. But I prefer not to continue with this aspect of the job. So I’ve asked one of the members of the committee, Pacifica, who has already been involved as an editor on this site, to become the Comments Editor and she has graciously accepted. From henceforth, I ask that any complaints about comments be sent to pacifica@ this domain name (i.e., isaacbrocksociety dot ca) . I will remain as administrator but it is my intention to be “hands off” when it comes to comment moderation. Pacifica has my full confidence, and she shares the concern of finding the right balance between open discussion and moderation.
An obviously difficult but wise choice for you, Petros. I am glad that you were able to see the harm to this website that was being done by one person. I commend you for the work that you have done in trying to handle CH. I would also like to welcome, Pacifica, to her new role and express my gratitude for willingness to take on this weighty task.
@Petros I agree with your decision. I didn’t have an oppourtunity to read the moderated comment but it makes sense that we shouldn’t be telling each other to F-off. I admit that sometimes I write some awkward things, but if I ever tell another Brocker to F-off on a public comment, please block my comment and write me asking that I rephrase. We are all unified by one cause here, figuring out how to get rid of nasty US policies. Save the F word for the IRS folks.
Although I do want to hear everyone’s opinions, I find some of ConfederateH’s comments to be unproductive in attacking the problems that we are all facing. I get the impression that he is fatalistic about the outcome of this whole mess. We cannot be fatalistic, we must fight to the end. I am tired of reading stuff from him that goes on about personal sovereignty and implies or states that all taxes are a waste or a swindle. Taxes are neccesary to run a society. I pay taxes in Switzerland. But I will not allow the IRS to violate the autonomy of the sovereign Swiss people, who are sovereign as a collective body, not as individuals. No democracy is perfect, but dealing with two on your back is simply not acceptable.
Any productive and insightful comments from CH would still be welcome. If CH wants to write more scathing things, then he can create his own WordPress blog as I have done. I’d join him on his blog and he can tell me to F-off all he wants over there, but please we need to keep the standards a little higher here at IBS, as we are being observed by politicians, lawyers, and plenty of people who might be able to help or hurt us, so while I think it is still ok to joke around from time to time (IRS is trying to FBAR Santa for example) we should keep to a certain level of journalism and diplomacy.
Very wise.
“Moderation?” Whew, I though you were talking about tonight’s festivities!
Happy New Year, everybody. What a great start!
Could we possibly start by naming, for the first time ever, even by pseudonym, the shadowy Committee of Six who in fact rule the faux grassroots Isaac Brock?
Petros, I cut you huge slack because (a) you alone stand out in the open (b) you refuse to execute the “policy” yourself (c) you obviously know you are caving in to a regime which does not prevail across the real rough-and-tumble internet.
This venue has just swallowed an exceedingly nasty bolus of Canadianism.
The rest is silence.
@usxcanada- I am not a part of the committee but I do applaud the work that they have done and I hope that they will continue to in their labours, in spite of the slight that you have just now lobbed their way. Other than for two rather high profile examples, this website has operated quite happily without any heavy hand of censorship. I am not a Libertarian, and I believe that most of us here aren’t, who believes that individual freedom consist in the complete absence of rules, other than for those that are your own.
There is no place even on this website for anyone to make slanderous or libelous attacks on other contributors. Nor should this site become a home for those who wish to use foul language as a tool for advancing their position. Foul language cannot make an argument true or false. It adds nothing of value to our discourse but merely pollutes our sight with the offal of someone else’s malice. Foul language is the last resort of the person who has no basis for his/her thoughts. Foul language is actually the prelude to actual violence and only denigrates your fellow human being.
I think that CH’s comments consistently demonstrate a
penchant to veer off into direct and gratuitous attacks on individuals here –
through unnecessary insults and invective based on personal, physical, racial, gender, and other characteristics and motives he presumes to assign them – rather than critiquing, sharing or building content and ideas. The internet at large may be full of unrestrained “rough and tumble”, but that doesn’t make it interesting or insightful. I can read racist, sexist and homophobic comments anytime, anywhere on the internet and elsewhere – there is a staggering surfeit of it – stupefyingly boring, repetitive, and a big waste of time.
How is moderating CH’s more gratuituous excesses in that particular vein depriving IBS of anything original, valuable or irreplaceable?
@recalcitrant I have sworn here at IBS before, but I usually try to mask it, e.g. “F…”, “WTF” or something like that. Though I don’t do it all the time, and I don’t use the F word against fellow Brockers. I don’t use it at all when I create a new thread, I try to be quasi-journalistic in such cases. There is a place for foul language from time to time, it intensifies the meanings of frustration and anger. We are all grownups here. But it should not be used all the time. Sometimes there are 5 franc words that might be more accurate choices. But somedays one is just so frustrated that (s)he throws up hands and just uses “the most interesting word” in the English language today:
@badger I just want us to get on with our quest to defeat US bureaucratic imperialism and not to get bogged down taking the piss out of each other. That is why I got frustrated with CH. If he’s got something new to say, or an article to share, he is welcome as far as I am concerned. But I don’t appreciate him bagging on people when he should be focusing on the goal: STOP DOUBLE TAXATION, STOP FATCA, FBAR, etc. Perhaps if we all met up physically we would not like each other because of our other opinions such as on abortion, gun control, etc. But here at IBS we are united to stop certain things that threaten our very existence. If he doesn’t believe that we can win or at least that the fight is worth fighting then he should just leave us to it, because I for one will not give up.
(1) We have our Administrative Notice. No commenter, no matter how
stupid or offensive, represents the “Isaac Brock Society” and so it is
no reflexion on the website;
– That may be so, however to the reader, allowing comments like this to flourish without reining in the objectionable commenter allows readers to make a value judgement based on what they read. We may think of Conf-H as a person who lets his “emotions” get the better of him, but other readers who don’t know his history will take his blowhard comments at face value and come to the conclusion that we are nothing more than a bunch of equivalent blowhards with “nothing to say” and that is not what we are trying to accomplish here.
(2) free speech requires allowing
objectionable opinions;
Free speech does also mean rebuttal to objectionable opinions. We gave a rebuttal, and got one in return. If we are sick of hearing him repeating the same thing over and over again, then free speech allows us the opportunity to tell him to “shut the hell up!”
(3) CH is a genuine expat whose experience is
informative to us;
From my experience of reading ConfH’s comments, 95% of his comments on this site have been bombast, the rest have been less than informative.
(4) many other much more famous forums and
informational websites which allow comments have similarly stupid and
offensive comments (see e.g., HuffPost, Zerohedge, Business Insider);
I’m certain that most of those sites have a less than stellar rating for value-added commentary. Most people don’t quote HuffPost or BI as valuable sources of information. If someone quotes a HuffPost article to me, I more often than not roll my eyes and say “credible source please”. Neither HuffPost nor BI would rate as a credible source in a college classroom report.
(5) no one is forced to read CH’s comments or any comment for that
matter.
Unfortunately, ConfH’s bombastic comments are like a trainwreck or a car accident on a busy highway. It clogs up movement and rational thought as well as creates an atmosphere for “other accidents”. Unless he sticks to the topic of FATCA or FBAR or the resultant other problems that arise from that legislation or offers a solution to the problem, his commentary is unwarranted nor is interesting.
As badger has said, if I wanted to read insulting language and other useless information of the likes of Conf-H, I’d go read other sources of information, or go to a militia site (there’s a lot of conspiracy theorists there who are a darn sight less repetitive and boring than Conf-H). I have better uses for my time and prefer to spend time here with my fellow Brockers trying to figure out a solution to this problem of FATCA and US extra-territorialism.
@jefferson, I agree that there are times when things are so frustrating that only ‘F’ seems to express the true sorry state of things – which is why it has been part of English for so many centuries.
I would tend to make the same distinction between directing it towards someone here specifically vs. using it as a general adjective or adverb.
The readers and authors here at IBS represent a wide range of political affiliations, opinions, experiences, worldviews, etc. So it doesn’t surprise me when there are disagreements, or differences of opinion – or lack of consensus on our chances of success, but I don’t see any constructive purpose for gratuitous and meaningless personal attacks on individuals – based on gender, sexuality, race, etc.
I can’t see how that adds anything to the debate here, or has any useful bearing on the topic or goal at hand.
*At first, I viewed the generalizations as being an insults and attacks against me. Yet, gradually I found it to be less personal and more controversial, and thus I fully understand how people can feel offended. As for the latest comments, I didn’t see all of them, so I can’t judge on what I do not know. Yet, the “you this” and “you that” which I did see, was not good. Moderation is a tricky task with it being difficult in determining if the provocation or the reaction is the greater problem. In the last few days, I’ve been sending emails to HuffingtonPost asking why there were not enforcing their rules, but I suspect that they have no serious intent on doing so. Heck, I couldn’t even convince the French national police to view the security camera at McDonald’s, which likely showed the face of the thief who stole my backpack. 🙁
Anyways, Happy New Year everyone!
@Petros
My views are well known to you, as we have had the offline conversations. I believe, moderation, difficult as it may be for the ideal of “free speech’, it is necessary in this forum to have some light touch moderation to maintain the tone and civil nature of the discussion. I don’t think we advance our common cause by being seen as bombastic and crude. We can still have passion without personal insults and attacks which are not necessary to make our points. We can strongly disagree with respect for each others opinions. Left, Right or Center, I can handle contrarian view points, actually welcome them, if delivered without malice, disdain, racist rants or unnecessary foul language.
Petros, thanks for the role you have played, and Pacifica, best wishes. I will accept your moderation if I get too personal or outrageous! I live with the moderation at a lot of other blogs, and if I find it too oppressive, I don’t go back there. I doubt that will be the case here.
@SwissPinoy as for the French police, that is silly that they wouldn’t look at the security tape. Probably busy chasing go-fast drug shipments so they don’t have time for your backpack. sorry to hear that
*Jefferson D. Tomas, thanks. Last year was my worst in terms of theft, and I had the most luck with the Swiss police. When my mom’s “best friend” stole about $30’000 worth of products from her the day after she died, the Colorado police did nothing. They said that they had a bunch of bank robberies to worry about. My camera got stolen twice in France last year. The first incident I didn’t report, but the reporting of the second incident didn’t seem to make a difference either. Yet, when I asked the guy who claimed that I had scratched his car to show the scratch to the Swiss police, the guy disappeared. So, at least the Swiss police did something for me by being there. 🙂
Here is a picture that I took in one of the lucky instances where my camera was not stolen:
*Seems like a good decision to me.
As a general principle I abhor censorship however I admire and respect good manners and by that I do not restrict myself to often laughable, politically correct utterings of the brainwashed or the “agenda-ised”. Provided one has even a modest command of the English Language then one really has no need to resort to profanities.
Happy New Year everyone ! I pray that 2013 will be a productive year for all and will be the turning point in bringing this FATCA madness to an end. The Canadian Cabinet MUST be brought onside …. or alternatively the majority of the Canadian Members of Parliament …. or alternatively the Canadian Media (and their followers, the people).
JUST SAY NO to FATCA ! There is no Honest, Informed, Rational debate that can be made in favor of FATCA – it is so clearly contrary to common sense and US self interest! Talk about using a sledge hammer to swat a mosquito …. the momentum and weight of the sledge is likely to do the wielder severe and disproportional damage !
Peace.
*well done. CH really went out of bounds when he claimed or approved of someone who claimed the crime at Newtown CT. was a staged event. He was driving other valuable contributors away. Good on you Petros and the gang of 6
As one of “the committee” who discussed this decision off-line with Petros (time for me to fess up, I guess), I am relieved that (so far anyway) the reaction has been almost unanimously positive. It wasn’t an easy or happy decision to make, as all of us on “the committee” are refugees from ExpatForum and were all outraged at the censhorship that was taking place on that site (basically anything including the word “renounce” was being axed at the end; at the very end a couple of us had some fun slipping in recipes or other trivialities onto the site but including “renounce” to see what would happen, and yep they blocked them).
As with others above, I didn’t see the specific posts that Petros mentions, as he’d already taken them down by the time I did my daily rounds. However I’d been having the same reactions to that person’s posts as others have had, though (perhaps negligently) my response had become to just skip over anything he put up. Fine for me, but unfortunately it didn’t fix the problem and became more of a problem for those who couldn’t avoid looking at the train wreck. When I was told the nature of the posts that were taken down, I was stunned and then utterly outraged. And, as others have noted, posts like that don’t help our credibility or sympathy from various folks whose help we need to recruit. There does come a time when looking the other way, or pretending to ignore it and hoping it will just go away, doesn’t work and isn’t tenable any longer. (Sounds familiar in the FATCA and FBAR context, doesn’t it?)
Not a particularly happy decision, but the right one IMO.
Re:
@usxcanada and anyone else who needs to know,
I was going to take a hiatus from this site for awhile, but I’ll answer part of your question as I think that my responsibility. I do think, usxcanada, you know that I am one of the background people at Isaac Brock so put 2 and 2 together that I may be one of “the committee”. As such, I have been part of some decisions. This very hard decision that Petros made (because of me and the understanding of all on “the committee”) and posted up front to explain ConfH’s absence is much because of my personal decision. I just emailed “the committee” if that is what it is, my feelings.
I feel compelled to answer usxcanada. I actually think he knows I am one of the committee. My name now appears within the Isaac Brock site if anyone wants to take the time to find that out / needs to know; I have not yet received my CLN; I don’t want my story to be my story, somehow highlighting my son (I want to do him no more harm) – I want it to be the story of any like those of my family. I think a lot of people perceive me as complaining about myself, which I am, but ultimately I want to have a voice for others in this same situation. How many will there be? I think a lot!
So, just to let you know, I will be jumping back in with a comment to usxcanada and I will be jumping in to Animal’s comment on another post. (I can’t stay out of the fray for long I guess.) Animal needs my backing. I think a lot of people don’t understand his anger.
In my mind and personally, mine is now a fight with the Canadian government. Will our Canadian government tell us that they will not honour Flaherty’s statements by signing an IGA? If that is the case, can they tell us that 3% of its population will be discriminated against by nationality in being able to close many of our accounts with the banks and doing business with the US they wish to protect, etc., etc. – because the US business of the banks and Canada is more important than how this affects US Person families in Canada? Just tell us – it may help our decisions. Do we have any guarantee we have value to the Canadian society? Will some of us come out in this; some hide; some with no power to do either — to make the decision of renunciation?
I will, by my answer to usxcanada, reveal myself (calgary411) and take responsibility for this juncture. It was you people who jumped in at my comments and my personal decision to back me rather than ConfH, a difficult decision for you, given the reason for the start of the Isaac Brock site. My reason – my personal reason — my line in the sand many times over, was that ConfH comments, in my opinion only, did not further debate on what I perceive to be the purpose of the Isaac Brock site. My personal decision was I didn’t want to refer anyone to Isaac Brock if they had to come across the hate spewed by ConfH – I didn’t see that he offered what he thought solutions, just blame. I did not want one person, not one person, to turn away from this site we have created when they were seeking help to make their personal decisions that will forever affect the fate of their families.
I, too, realize that this site was founded because of our abhorring being censored on the Exat Forum. So, I am a bit of a turncoat on not honouring that, but it was my personal decision.
Perhaps that will further clear the air, my taking responsibility for my personal decision.”
If you, usxcanada, want names (even pseudonyms), perhaps you and ConfH should be willing to give us your names (which, by the way, I don’t want anyone compelled to do). I am “calgary411”, one of the Shadowy Committee of Six. You also know my real name.
PS: I have disqualified myself from contributing to moderation re ConfH or anyone else’s comments as I may be too thin-skinned to do so. (I didn’t stay ‘just a lurker to the Isaac Brock site’ for long, which is what I thought I’d better do for awhile.)
PSS: It wasn’t the specific insult to another commenter that forced my line in the sand. I agree that is abhorrent, childish, not helpful (am I calling someone childish?). It was quite another hateful comment that I’m glad most didn’t see. It was not something I could personally be any part of.
PSSS: Happy 2013. May this be a year of bringing our issues forward regarding FATCA. I would encourage any lurkers (and, my god, I know why you are doing that) to join the fight; tell your Canadian, or any other government, that this is wrong — if that is what you think. They won’t know how many are affected by allowing the US to override the existing Canada-US Tax Treaty if we don’t tell them. Should we not all hold first-class citizenship and residency in the countries of our choice?
Welcome back Calgary411, and well said. Thanks for nudging a reluctant member like me over the brink on this decision; I’m glad you did. It was long overdue.
Calgary411, (and the other 5 members of ‘the committee’),
I thank all of you for what was, I am sure, a difficult decision. Over this past year (since I had my OMG moment), I have referred others to this site. More recently, I hesitated to refer people to the site because the tone of some particular postings was/could be very offensive.
IBS has become a lifeline for me and I am sure for many others. I don’t want to lose it, nor would I want to lose any of you. So, again, I thank you for what must have been a most difficult decision.
And to all a very Happy New Year.
*All rights including the right to free speech are not unlimited. This site has built a reputation for honest and reasoned discussion of expat issues including taxes, mobility renunciation among others. It has become a source of valuable infomation (often referenced), mutual support and a place to exchange our experiences ( consulate reports and expatrition) and a forum for more private discussion.
Moderation is a website’s exercise of the right of self-defence, to prevent unruly and irresponsible comments. Maybe one is acceptable, what of 10 or 100 similiar posters to site would lose its appeal and be avioded by those who need the personal information and experiences many have provided.
Those of us who initially joined IBS did not flee from “moderation” which promotes a free and respective exchange of all ideas and opinions: but from its excessive evil cousin of “censorship” which limits discussion to politically correct and permitted topics.
@all Kindly accept my sincere wishes for a happy, prosperous and stress-free new year.
@Pacifica I wish you wisdom and patience in your responsibilities
The committee of six includes five currently active members: Schubert1975, Deckard1138, Pacifica, Calgary411, and Petros. The sixth person dropped out of activity (for no apparent reason other than needing to get their computer fixed).
My gratitude for having this site always outweighed the existence of any of Con-H’s darker comments and knowing a bit of his background I guessed they were emanating from a point of pain. I get that but still I can’t help feeling a sense of relief at the committee’s decision. The FATCA fiasco is affecting my health and I need information and sometimes commiseration to help me get through this, so a little moderation here and there will only be a positive thing I think. You are all doing a brilliant job with Brock and it isn’t just my Canadian nature that makes me want to thank you over and over again to the point where you would want me to cease and desist. Happy New Year @All!
BTW, other sites I go to are experiencing troll troubles and moderation is appearing there where it never existed before. It’s a bit of trend I would say.
The sixth person to whom Petros refers above has been off our radars, or at least off mine, for about a year now. I hope it wasn’t a health problem for her or her husband, I seem to recall something along those lines was happening back then. Also as Petros mentions she was having major computer problems, but even Windows shouldn’t take 12 months or so to fix … at least not version 7, I have no idea what 8 is like and I have zero interest in learning but let’s not go there …
If she’s silently watching these threads, some of us would love to hear from her, if only privately and to know she’s alright and coping with the citizenship and FATCA mess.