I just wanted to post something about my stance. Sometimes people ask or comment about that, so figured maybe I should create something. If discussion of an individual contributor (or this individual contributor) isn't your bag, you may want to skip this one.
As some people already know, I came to criticism and posting about 10 years ago, just blundered into it. I was in CofS at the time and found alt.religion.scientology by accident and the rest, as they say, is history. At the time, I just wanted to (in the words of one lady there) "Witness for (my) religion". I just wanted to talk. Ultimately? I ended up learning a lot and leaving CofS. Since then, I've been on the radio (once) criticizing CofS, have talked with other media on other occasions, including doing a tv interview that, unfortunately, ended up on the cutting room floor, so it didn't get used. Too bad, too, 'cuz it was pretty critical. I never ever did any dissemination courses or "handling" drills or TR-Lie or anything like that. I don't consider myself to be a typical Scn'ist. Everything I learned about debate on forums was forged in the furnaces of a.r.s.- not the Scn Adademy.
Originally, I'd felt upset about the Scn thing because I knew I liked most of the ideas and methods in it and the only people who were offering it was CofS and they were such assclowns. I remember being upset about that years before I left. At the time, I stayed. I'd been pretty well indoctrinated about squirrels, etc, so figured that wasn't an option. Eventually, those clowns pushed me so hard on the "you better not post and you can't even read the forum" issue, I got mad and left, particularly since they showed me contempt at the same time while asking for MY money and MY time. I figured, "WTF am I even doing here?" And I left and stopped self censoring-which I was doing in my posts up til then. They didn't like that and expelled both myself and my husband as they were evidently having a two for one special on Swazeys.
But I still had a lot of interest in Scn itself and I still did. I could see plenty of flaws in it but there were plenty of things that struck me as just fine. So I decided that this was still my personal creed and that I could implement anything that was positive and discard anything that wasn't.
I've never been interested in proselytizing. My thing is about choice. I want to see people feel free to speak out, to picket, to leaflet, or to do Scn outside CofS or to do Scn inside CofS. It's that person's choice. This is a red hot "button" with me. I really did not like CofS telling me who to talk to and who not. I'm happy to see people studying Scn- I'm not going to lie to you. But I'm also pleased to see them ditch the whole thing. My question to anyone who ever asked me has always been: "What do you want to do?" It's not about what the cult wants them to do or what some other person thinks they should do or what the media or their Mommy or their drycleaner thinks they should do. It's up to the person.
I do not believe that freedom of speech should be limited to one point of view- that way or the highway. I left the cult over that issue.
So what am I "selling"? It isn't Scn. I'm "selling" freedom of speech and of choice. And to qualify that last, I do not condone any choices that include RPFing people, ripping families apart or any illegal and/or predatory actions. Part of my freedom of choice is to decry these actions whenever they occur in CofS and I've written much on the subject. But my underlying stance and reason for posting is to let people know they have a right to choose. They have a right to leave CofS. They have a right to study Scn elsewhere. They have a right to say "Are you kidding? I don't want any part of that." They have a right to picket and to pass out leaflets, if that's what they want to do.
I take a dim view of people who get mad if others don't want to picket or who don't want others to exercise their rights to pursue their ideological interests and freedom of choice. That's it. That's my thing. I'm proselytizing freedom of speech and of (legal actions only) choice.
