Steve and I revisited today the controversy on this thread about posting photos of the covers of political books. We understand the view of Al M, Kedar and others who believe that posting the photo of the cover of a political book is, in and of itself, a political expression, a political comment, in violation of the forum's ban on politics. We respect and appreciate this view, but we decline to uphold it here.
We believe that a rule prohibiting the posting of photos of the covers of political books would simply shift the debate to the question of "what is a political book?" For example, is a book by a tenured professor at Harvard University who publishes a Critical Race Theory based revisionist critique of the Constitutional Convention a "political" book? Is a book by Charles Krauthammer, credentialed academically only as a medical doctor, about President John F. Kennedy a political book? (I give these examples only to illustrate our thought process. I am not soliciting public debate here. If for some reason you feel compelled to discuss these examples please contact me privately.)
We decline to adjudicate such questions with regard to the initial posting of the photo of a book cover. We concede, however, that we may be forced occasionally to conduct precisely this adjudication anyway, in connection with deciding whether a book is or is not a "political" book whose cover photo may or many not be posted with accompanying text and may or may not be responded to by others with a comment. If too many of these adjudications become necessary, we might simply prohibit the posting of any text relating to any book cover on this thread. If seems silly, however, to have to prohibit comments on chocolate chip cookie recipes. If you find this to be an unsatisfying analysis, then please just accept that we would rather delete textual comments than the photos of book covers.
The rule about posting only the photos of covers of political books, with no accompanying textual comments, as described in Post #869 of this thread, stands. In addition, no one may post any written comment in response to the posting of a photo of the cover of a political book.
Any text accompanying the posting of a photo of the cover of a political book will be deleted. Any text posted in response to the posting of a photo of the cover of a political book will be deleted. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes comments such as "fabulous read" and "from a true authority."
If you notice that a particular member repeatedly posts photos of the covers of political books which you find objectionable, please feel free to use the "Ignore" feature of the website. I believe this is kind of like "unfollowing" someone on Facebook.
If I, Steve or the moderators fail to delete a post proscribed by this rule we would appreciate it if somebody would kindly let me know.
Please do not hesitate to contact me privately if you have any questions.
Thank you.
