... Al.

>> You and a whole boatload of other people (comment on this below)
>> here seem to put slabbed chips in a category so heinous that no
>> opposing views are welcome.

Slabbed chips are heinous, but you are entitled to have any opposing view you like and I will be the last person to tell you that you can't have or express that view, here or anywhere else.

>> I may shoot myself in the foot for any future office in this group
>> right here and right now but I will stand by what i have always
>> believed -- Thomas Jefferson knew what he was talking about when
>> he advocated a marketplace of ideas.

I am a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson. There is, however, an interesting anomaly in your comments. You advocate a "marketplace" of ideas, but fail to see (or at least fail to acknowledge) that the "boatload of other people" you mentioned above is the "marketplace" and we are expressing our "ideas" in the only way that the "marketplace" truly understands (that is, by exercising our economic power to oppose a product we think not only worthless but detrimental to our hobby).

>> If you believe your views are so weak that they can't stand
>> up to the oppositiion, than you are the one with the problem.

I'm not at all concerned whether my "views" can or cannot stand up to the opposition. They have expressed their views, I've expressed mine. As Andy Hughes mentioned in his response, we had a panel discussion seminar on slabbing at the 2001 convention. I was one of the panelists, presenting the anti-slabbing position. The other panelists were CT Rogers (a chip dealer who was pro-slabbing), Ken Hallenbeck (then vice president of the club, a long time coin guy and very pro-slabbing) and Steve Rocchi of Collectors Universe, the original and most prominent of the slabbing companies.

I welcomed the opportunity to debate the issue with them and would have no qualms about doing so again.

A willingness to engage in debate, however, goes only so far. At some point, the debate has to end and action has to be taken, one way or the other. It is simply my view (not shared by all those who are anti-slabbing) that the appropriate action is to prohibit slabs entirely from the club's venues, including the convention.

>> I am a leftist, gay-rights, anti-war hippie who welcomed the U.S. Army
>> to make their point at the first Lollapalooza (for those of you who
>> remember counterculture in 1991, lollapalooz gave birth to the Cobain
>> generation). I despised what they stood for, but I wanted them there.
>> I knew that my side would prove them wrong.

I am a Libertarian who also believes in gay rights, but has little use for either "leftists" (who trample individual rights in the name of "the people") or rightists (who trample individual rights in the name of the government). I am a West Pointer (Class of 1967) who spent four years thereafter as a Naval officer, including a year in Vietnam (1967-1968). My Dad is retired Navy and fought throughout the Pacific in WWII and did three tours in Vietnam in the '60's. My father-in-law landed the first day at Normandy and fought all the way to Berlin. My younger brother was also Navy and was killed in the service in 1969.

Your "side" has never "proved" anything about the "wrong" of military service. If it wasn't for people like my father, my father-in-law, my brother and I, we'd be having this discussion, if at all, in German, Japanese or Russian.

>> If the anti-slabbers in this club are afraid of debate,
>> they should go form a club in a totalitarianism country.

H'm. You want a debate, but we should have to leave the country because our point of view differs from yours? Now there's a real Jeffersonian concept.

>> I say let the slabbers in, take them on head-to-head,
>> and embarrass them with your better argument.

We did that a year-and-a-half ago. And haven't heard much from them since. To which I say, good riddance. And now I see no point in giving them another opportunity to get their foot in the door.

>> Why are you all so afraid of debate?

I'm afraid of nothing (at least not in this context -- I don't much care for heights, fire and the other guy's pocket aces), least of all a good debate. After all, that's pretty much what lawyers do. Furthermore, the slabbing "debate" has been an ongoing process for a couple of years now. And those of us who oppose slabbing are not afraid to engage in it.

What I am afraid of is that slabbers will ruin our hobby the way they did coins and trading cards (and are trying to do with others as well). And I will not apologize for saying and doing whatever I can to prevent that from happening.

>> Having now alienated everyone in the club I respect, I will await my excommunication.

We don't "excommunicate" pople for expressing their opinions, Al, however much we might disagree with them. Nor would I suggest that you take your leftist, anti-war views (however much I might despise them) to some other country. And, if necessitated by future events, I would readily see my three sons go to war to protect your right to hold those views.

I'm not entirely sure how we got from "slab wars" to the real thing, but I do know that while I am passionate about the former, I recognize its relative insignificance compared to the latter.

----- jim o\-S