The need for "Identity Confirmation" with a phone number is aburd.

Personal note: Your misrepresentation of my claims is growing tiresome. It's obvious you're not even attempting to understand my perspective, merely looking for thing to attack. What was a debate in my mind is now just another argument. Oh well, par for the course. C/R 1:Your personal experience does not constitute evidence. I wish it did, but it does not. Obviously idealism is not your strong point, and while I understand cynicism and apathy, I cannot condone them in principal. Besides which you are arguing against something that I didn't even say. But thats fine, because its all open to interpretation. I'm aware of the flimsy justification for confirmation, my arguments stand. To paraphrase the now famous quote, sacrificing freedom for security is a bad move. C/R 2: And yet with the cynicism presented before, about all people not forced otherwise being liars and fakers and cheaters, suddenly a ray of childlike trust for the administration of this site. Sadly I do not share your blind faith in a non-human corporation. C/R 3: *sigh* Explain to me how one can be anonymous and still confirm their identity. Doublethink anyone? Sure I can be anonymous to users, but thats not my concern. What if I were to begin a debate that got national attention on say property rights activism? I don't know what bubble world you live in, but in the real world there are real life consequences if your words anger the right people, now I'm in a position where I'm pretty well not subject to those sorts of concerns, however, I'm not so short sighted and unimaginative as to think that will always been the case or so self obsessed to think that only my situation matters. Again, just because YOU choose to waive a right does not mean it should not be fought for on behalf of others. C/R 4: As above, your double think is showing. How hard is this to grasp? If someone knows my identity I'm not anonymous. I mean seriously. ??!!? Your baseless faith in what ethically amount to a lemonade stand is shocking. You'll willingly hand your identity to a group of people openly seeking profit, but you'll not hand it to people who have no reason to care? Beyond that logical dead end, you bring up another wonderful contradiction. If email as you say is "identity-compromising information" Then why is that insufficient for identity confirmation? You can't have it both ways. Either email is identity confirming in nature or it is not. If it is, then the cell phone demand is redundant in addition to being invasive. Or it is not, and thus my anonymity is potentially secure so long as I don't give them my number. Go put disposable email in Google. And again, See C/R 3. C/R 5: I'm glad you concede the point. The question of weather or not it was worse or better before is moot because the nature of the vote was fundamentally altered. You seem to think rather simplistically about human motives. Perhaps the voting fakery stemmed from a frustration with the vagueness of the vote itself. I believe that the additional voting options would have negated the need for any vote fraud, to attack the problem from both ends at the same time produces distorted results. You don't run two experiments at the same time on the same rat. You also seem to disregard the possibility of voter fraud being usable to counter vote fraud, and while you seem to trust the admins of this place to act as saints with your personal data, you now feel they are lazy idiots with regard to spotting and eliminating multiple account voter fraud. There are MUCH better ways to handle this problem than going 1984 on us. What happens when I just use all my friends cell phones to get 30 accounts? Gunna start asking for SSN next? This is a slippery slope you've mounted here, and I for one will attack it at every turn. How would you react to a demand for your credit card number even if it came with a promise of 0 charge? C/R 6: You may be callow enough to bend to defacto restrictions, and "freedom for a price" thinking but I'm not. That same logic was used to defend segregation, and all other manner of oppression for profit. "If you don't like our policy you can work somewhere else." I don't know where you're from but in America some of us still remember our charter and struggle against BS like this on principal. I'm not a moron, I know I don't HAVE to participate here. I don't HAVE to vote either, if you get right down to it I don't HAVE to do anything, ask any catatonic. That changes nothing. The demand is irrational regardless of my response to it, and that is the issue. Do I look like I care about anonymity for MYSELF? I posted my name and my picture, rather than some anime character and a l33t speak car reference. You May not be able to grasp the concept of fighting for a principal, and thats sad for you, but I suffer no such disability. C/R/ 7: And what happens when I start discussion the need for a revolution in this country and gather a following? What happens when the powers that be decide that my words constitute a threat to national security or some lesser degree of violation? As I said before and as you've ignored before anonymity is required for legitimate rule. Take a journalism or civics class, and explore the ethics behind confidentiality of sources. Explore the ethic behind the right to face your accuser as well, to understand the times when anonymity is NOT reasonable. I'm aware of those as well, its just that this is not one of those instances. C/R 8: Sadly you are right, but a statement of corruption and injustice is not a defense of it, people are also raped and murdered every day or incarcerated unjustly or all three. That fact is not a justification. What happens when everywhere is inside some establishment? In a capitalist society virtually EVERYTHING is privately owned, are you saying that my rights end at the door in ALL such places?Sure its my company but that doesn't mean I get to run an ad saying "Dames with luscious stems only." Of course not. My rights follow me. But I understand where you'd be confused given the damage done to our rights by our leaders and our own apathy. C/R 9: My point was that the admins here are not the bastions of impartiality and honorability your argument requires them to be. I know the argument, perhaps you've failed to grasp that no position exists in a vacuum. It's called context, look into it. C/R 10: 1. I'm talking about changes to the site itself, I'm talking about open vs closed source. 2. False dilemma fallacy. The choice is not between invasion of privacy and security. As explained before there are countless other ways to ensure one vote per person that do not require an attack on my civil liberty. Your ignorance of this is not an attack on my position. C/R 11: So what a person or entity does with a thing has no bearing on its right to a thing? I believe you've misunderstood a fundamental part of general ethics. What happens to a lawyer who abuses his power? Or a doctor? When a person abuses a thing, in a just society that thing is taken from them. From children to licenses to guns to every other manner of social key. C/R 12: And once again you over simplify the reason WHY a person would want to vote multiple times. See above. Final note: It must be fun for you to totally misrepresent my claims. The net is crawling with Trolls. GIFT (this pertains to an internet theory related to anonymity, you might enjoy it) for the win. My point was that THIS PAGE'S debates are pointless, not debate generally and you knew that. I will not be commenting further, indeed I will be deleting my account. My disappointment in this site is complete. Enjoy your last word. Such squandered potential.