[MaggieL]

I'm not going to go revisit the health-impacts-of-addictions subthread...that was ages ago. I made my concerns clear, Syc made his responses. It's old news.

But I did want to pick up on something I've heard a couple times out here lately...citing "First Amendment rights". For pity's sake, there's *no* environment on this planet that's more supportive of free speech than the The Cellar.

But the Cellar tradition has been that (almost) all propositions are subject to debate. If you make a statement, and someone else calls on you to back it up with reasoning or an explanation, waving a free speech flag hasn't cut much ice around here in the past. It isn't that we don't value freedom of speech. Quite the contrary--freedom of speech is a value totally ingrained in the community culture, taken for granted, and usually doesn't even need to be mentioned.

Every one has freedom to make almost any kind of statement here, and they also have freedom of to defend them. Criticisim isn't an attempt to silence here, it usually takes the form of an invitation to amplify. But if the perception is that the speaker is blowing smoke, he or she can expect to hear about *that*, too.

*Commentary* and *criticisim* are protected speech as well...and the suggestion that that commentary or crticisim is intended to silence someone and is thus somehow in violation of their rights would itself seem intended to have a chilling effect on free speech...the notion of "political correctness" is apropos.

Fortunately the Cellar has been immune to that sort of thing so far. Long may it wave.