TalkLeft Without Quotas

This post is intended as a forum for those commenters on takleft.com - the number is considerable and growing - now subject to the ideological quotas on them at that site. It is also intended for thos eon the Left who would prefer a genuine discussion with such people, as opposed to an echo-chamber of mandatory agreement.

For the rest of you reading this, who may be unaware of the background, talkleft.com imposes quotas on commenters who disagree with the leftist position, regardless of the civility or usefulness of the discussion. I'm pretty sure it was in response (at least in large part) to my own comments on this thread, where I commented under the handle "ras". Also - if you read the policy - because I haven't hit their tip jar yet!

So I've set up this thread as a means to allow a forum for such discussions. We'll see how it goes.

All commenters - pls remember to include a link or a reference to the original topic of discussion so we know which issue you're concerned with; thx.

p.s. before I get any more email queries as to why I would be commenting at a Leftist site in the first place: the answer is simply that I prefer to test my arguments and hear the contrary views. How else can we learn?

p.p.s. I have pre-dated this post to move it into archives, so that it will not appear at the top of my blog, which is not the intent.