Freedom of Speech! HUZZAH!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I finally decided what I needed to write about concerning the LotFP RPG Grindhouse Edition/Greg Christopher controversy.  First of all I do not want to add fuel to this fire, and I hope I don't, but I think if you are reading this, and can do it without getting emotional or pissed off, then hopefully I can make some good points, without creating more controversy.

My position in this whole thing has been that I had no problem with what Raggi published.  Is it something I would have bought?  I doubt it.  I've mentioned elsewhere that I thought the art that I saw wasn't that great, ( with the exception of the cover ), and yes, I thought it was immature, and that is my opinion of the art.  MY OPINION.  An opinion I'm not trying to force on ANYONE.  If you like it, that's fine with me.  I'm glad you enjoy it, ( not that you need my permission ), after all everyone deserves to be happy, and enjoy life.  What you do/read/watch in the sanctity of your own house is your business; as long as it doesn't harm someone else.

On the flip side, Mr Christopher has every right to his opinion.  He feels that the LotFP RPG Grindhouse Edition shouldn't have been published.  As per the whole Freedom of Speech argument, he's allowed to write about this on his blog.  The truth is we don't know how many gamers out there, that know about LotFP:GE Edition, think the same thing.  We will never know.  So I'm not sure about the whole social contract thing, but he's free to make that statement on his blog.  Is it true?  I have no idea.  However, he's free to make any statement he wants.  Now, to be perfectly honest I don't agree with him, because I am a firm believer in Free Speech, and Raggi should be able to publish whatever he wants.  I hope my POV is clear now.

I don't buy the fact that many people feel he was trying to speak for them.

One problem I have with this whole mess is that Raggi shouldn't get upset, and it seems to me he did from reading one of his posts.  He wanted to publish some controversial material, and when it created controversy, he shouldn't have gotten upset.  Maybe he wanted a different type of controversy?

Now on to something that's very important, and something that a lot of people forget about.  Freedom of Speech is a right. However, with that right comes responsibility.  The most common example being you shouldn't yell fire in a crowded theater.  Someone might get hurt.  I've written two other posts about this controversy, and let them alone without posting them. I mulled them over and decided it wouldn't help anything to post them.  They weren't exactly rants, but they lacked any content that warranted me to post them.  It was cathartic for me to write them, but for the greater good I left them unposted.  Chances are they will just add more fuel to the fire.  I didn't want that, enough damage has already been done.

I made comments on someone else's blog, and I was called among other things a quisling? A Pope? A Ned Flanders type?  I found it all very humorous and wonder if they actually read my comment, or even understood my point of view.  Maybe I'll go back and copy the anonymous comment and post it.

In the further spirit of full disclosure I will say I called some of the commenter's and bloggers immature and full of hypocrisy.  I don't agree with using offensive language and/or insults, in an attempt to make your point.  I think it dilutes your whole message, and is an unintelligent thing to do.  I know many would say they don't want to infringe on Greg's right to free speech, but from what I read, it seems they want to do the very thing they're upset about.  Don't infringe on my freedoms!  But they feel that they can infringe on his.  That's hypocrisy.

Today I stopped following about a half a dozen blogs.  My reasons are my own.  I value my time, and what I do with it.  I seriously doubt any of the blogs will miss my support, nor will they realize that I'm gone.  No big deal.

Finally, due to something Raggi said in a post, the one where ( it seems to me ) that he's upset by the controversy his controversial material created. ( Which I thought was his goal? ) His blog is one that I stopped following.  I can't support him or his products.  I can defend his right to publish what he wants, ( within reason ), but I can no longer support him, or buy any of his products.  Which is a shame, there are some items I wanted to buy.  Vornheim: the City Kit, was one of them.  Oh well, I'll spend that money on something else.

All in all, I'm not mad or upset as many of the other bloggers and people who commented on blogs seem to be.  The insults were humorous, ( the ones aimed at me ) and seemed kind of out of context to what I wrote?  I don't know, maybe I will post them just for clarities sake, and see what other people think.  Then again maybe not, time to move on to better things.

I could go on, but I feel that I made my position clear.  Do I think this post will help matters?  No, but I feel I had to write it.  You don't like my opinion?  Feel free to move on, stop following my blog, whatever.  It won't bother me.  It's odd that since I've made some comments over the past couple of days, I've gained some followers.  I had dropped to 53, but now I'm up to 56.  Go figure.  I really don't want to draw traffic to my blog through controversy.  I would just as soon lose those followers that WANT the controversy.

Hopefully, next time I can post some cool game content.  Well, that's my goal anyway.