A Day at the Mall

If it was a private conversation with his friend then to me that would be perfectly fine. No reason at all to kick him out. However if he was doing preaching to others and annoying them (like famous douchebag Ray Comfort) then that would be a reason to kick him out.

I have encountered a guy like that at a mall once. Im not religious or anything It was a pleasant conversation and I didnt mind. But if its one of those preachers that comes along and calls me or someone I know a bad person (again like Ray Comfort) then I got an issue.

    I find it difficult to believe that a person as highly trained as a navy seal would not understand basic social norms. A mall is indeed private property, not a public street. This includes the promenade and other "open" areas inside the mall between shops, those are also private property. Even in public streets and parks outside malls laws regulate various forms of solicitation. I thoroughly appreciate that. Panhandling is regulated in Richmond, Virginia for example. Surrounding areas have similar regulations. Concerning proselytizing, a civilized human being should not need laws to tell him to leave strangers who do not welcome him, laws or not.

    A source of wonder then might be where can strange (new) or controversial ideas be aired? Professional journalists try to offer a forum for the "free and open" discussion of issues of the day. Every newspaper has an "opinion/editorial" page. The specific details of the identity of contributors is usually not made available to the public. In that way a person can say things that for one reason or another he is afraid to say in public. Sunday morning talk shows invite dissenting opinions and might put people with them on camera if they wish. If they rather not appear on camera a journalist might present their comments for them.

    Computer discussion boards started as and continue to be very much like the forums for free and open discussion moderated by professional journalists. However the moderating, if any, is usually not professional. It tends to be driven by large numbers of people oblivious of the way such forums work.

    It is of course the business of the web site owners how to moderate or not their own web property. If they want a site that does not allow people to withhold their identity then they certainly can make it so. The advantage in that is more credibility. The disadvantage is that they will not get as much of the controversy since they tend to stifle dissenting opinions.

    Some here might recall that I wrote news stories for the "Examiner.com" web site. Although it began with many professionals in various positions (My immediate supervisor wrote for the Washington Post for many years, several of the writers were professional lawyers, and so on.) there was no guiding philosophy, no one school of journalism, in actual "charge." It was entirely "click" driven. It went out of business I would say because it was entirely click driven.

    That is a big surprise to many people. When computers came along many people thought it would provide a rapid and highly accurate measure of more profound thought on the issues. They hoped for a new "true" democracy that would be better than the "representative" form of government we now have. They had, and some still have, an abiding faith in the majority opinion. As things have turned out it appears George Bernard Shaw might have a point when he said, "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." It is becoming increasingly obvious that the "majority" assembled by the computer lacks training and discipline.

    Noticing that happening some are trying to fix the problem, for example by not allowing some people to speak, by stifling outside opinions. Although it probably does require professional management, they still are not professionals. They probably think their high volume of traffic is the result of higher credibility. It is far more likely that their traffic is largely the result of people who can speak freely only because they protect their identities.

Perhaps this will be enough to inspire Paul Blart 3...

I once attended a Christian youth camp in Orlando when I was around 15 - once of those "get on fire for Jesus" type deals wherein we were told even mentally dwelling on sex with a woman outside of marriage was sinful, masturbation would destroy the nerves of the penis, etc. - not one of my more positive early-Christian experiences. Anyway, they sprung a huge surprise on us the last weekend of the event by announcing we were all heading to Epcot center, admission already paid... you can imagine the smiles on kids faces... then they told us our entire purpose there was to witness to people in line.

I remember thinking this seemed really unfair, cornering people in those monster-long lines, no where for them to go to excuse themselves from the discussion, some of them dragging their kids hundreds of miles to have a good time only to have to listen to the clumsy proselytizing of teens. Some of the kids were really good at it - I was just mortified.

We weren't kicked out for doing so, but once a couple of patrons complained, we were quickly herded up and informed the park was a private entity and, thus, not subject to the free speech one has to preach in a public space. Our "youth pastor" or whatever has was made a HUGE vocal fuss at it, claiming our freedoms were at stake, etc... the usual stuff you here when the concept of free speech in the US gets battered to death by people who don't understand it. The park employees were really polite about the whole thing (later I learned that this wasn't an uncommon event at either Epcot of Disney World) but the pastor was just outraged.