Quoth the Raven, hey, Sleepy Mouse!

About three years ago, FALSE-book, as I now call it, perma-banned me for stating facts which THEY KNEW to be facts-- about subjects not to be discussed on Dancing Lawn. So I joined MeWe dot com-- which, unlike Falsebook, permits ALL sides of any issue to be heard. Sleepy Mouse, under his alternate name of Nevermore Poe, friend-requested me there on MeWe. Soon afterward, I invited him to join Dancing Lawn.
 
Functionally, MeWe dot com is like Falsebook, although Falsebook did have the virtue of allowing you to store up articles you wrote. As I say, MeWe gives equal free speech to ALL subscribers. There are super-ultra-hard leftists on MeWe who would be fully at home on Falsebook, but MeWe doesn't persecute them the way Christians and patriots ARE persecuted on Falsebook.

Falsebook bans SO MANY people on phony pretexts, that they have to hide what they're doing. When they decided to delete me for posting verifiable facts, they pretended that they were dealing with a "security issue," supposedly a hacker trying to steal my account. But somehow it "just happened" that they never found the (non-existent) hacker, and I remained perma-banned.
 
As I've said, EVERY viewpoint is permitted on MeWe. There are definitely members from European countries, and some who appear to be Asian or African. Arguments are sometimes reasonable and courteous on both sides; sometimes reasonable and courteous on only one side; and sometimes mean and spiteful on both sides. But no one ever gets banned merely for EXPRESSING a view that the owners don't share. Not. Ever.

Users can get banned on MeWe only if they are extraordinarily nasty and filthy, if they threaten someone with harm, or if they are found to be scam artists trying to get money on false pretenses.
 
What we are desperately seeking with online discourse is a space where all viewpoints are accepted and discussed reasonably. A space in which all viewpoints are accepted, but some are met with attacks, or are otherwise shouted down, is not particularly helpful or innovative.

That said, I also don't think users should be banned for being "nasty", "filthy", or "wishing harm to others", rather it is those statements that should be shouted down. Possibly risky as it is, those people have viewpoints and a place in society too. Unless all they're doing is those things, in which case I suppose they should definitely be banned.
 
MeWe seems to be as good as it gets. When I said "nasty and filthy," I was being mild for Dancing Lawn sensitivities. Try, "rhymes with corn." And by threatening harm, I meant User One seriously threatening to injure User Two specifically and in person.

Gab dot com is decent, but in technical operation it is less user-friendly.

There used to be a network explicitly for Christians, called Social Cross, but its functional quality was VERY POOR.

Note further that on MeWe, as on Falsebook, you can create a discussion group whose content can be seen only by members. This lets you cull out any troublemakers.
 
I wish that poor Edgar had had more occasion to write HAPPY verse. But he did produce a sober beauty from his own bereavement. This poem is titled, "To One In Paradise." (Past bereavements have made me feel such pain-- which, by the grace of Aslan, did finally end.)

Thou wast that all to me, love, for which my soul did pine--
A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, and all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah! starry hope, that didst arise,
But to be overcast! A voice from out the future cries: "On, on!"--but o'er the past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies mute, motionless, aghast!

For alas, alas, with me the light of life is o'er!
No more, no more, no more--
(Such language holds the solemn sea to the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances, and all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams--
In what ethereal dances, by what eternal streams.
 
I take issue with people who claim that "originality" is dead. We have seen many things done before, but that does not mean that everything that is similar to any of those things is also derivative of them.
 
Back when more people used to be literate, Mister Poe's name was so widely recognized that a movie could gain favorable attention just by being NAMED AFTER one of his poems or stories.
 
Of Americans who DON'T speak French, not one in five hundred understands what is meant by "Rue Morgue."

"Rue" is French for "street." The specific name of the particular street here comes AFTER the generic word for a street. Add in the fact that the British, who must have influenced Mister Poe, will say "IN such-and-such street" where we would say "ON such-and-such street," and vice versa. So Poe meant us to understand this story's title as "The Murders ON Morgue Street." The killings did not occur inside a mortuary building owned by some guy with the last name of "Rue."
 
Nineteenth-century Americans were more educated than many modern people suppose. Mister Poe, for instance, had some knowledge of Islam. From Hadith (secondary Islamic literature) he learned that Muslims believed in the existence of an archangel named Israfel. Poe wrote a poem about him, as follows:


In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit-
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute-
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely- flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
Click to expand...
 
Copperfox said:
Nineteenth-century Americans were more educated than many modern people suppose. Mister Poe, for instance, had some knowledge of Islam. From Hadith (secondary Islamic literature) he learned that Muslims believed in the existence of an archangel named Israfel. Poe wrote a poem about him, as follows:
Click to expand...
I believe that our ancestors were smarter in many ways than we are today. Also, they got around a lot more than we give them credit for!
 
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