We gather here to today, in the presence of Big Changes, to mourn the loss of our renowned leader, the prophet and Great Teacher Onizuka, Anthony Ciolli. May the Washington Post have mercy on his soul. He is not retired, of course, but he has resigned as our Chief Educational Director. Although I do not have the faintest notion what the significance of that particular position was, I suppose it to be quite important. At the very least, we know it to be a very tragic day when Mr. Ciolli voluntarily resigns such a choice gold star on his resume. Yet, whether resigned or retired or resurrected on the third day, I do not think I speak presumptuously when I say that within the coal-blackened heart of each true xoxoer, there beats an everlasting song of gratitude and devotion to the Great Teacher.

Or not.

We have lost a leader. But more importantly, we have lost our way. The events of late point to an unprecedented identity crisis the like of which xoxo has never faced. The outcome of this struggle will prove determinative, not only for the future of each board member, but for the hope and future of the human species. We are the greatest, the most ambitious, and the most prestigious social experiment in freedom that has ever been undertaken in the history of the world. If we fail, then we not only fail ourselves, but we fail each generation that has worked to grant us the inalienable right to say what we choose, and each generation that will receive from us not the torch of liberty, their birthright, but the ashes of despair and silence.

The relentless attacks by Reputation Defender, compounded by the unfathomable stupidity and cruelty of a certain undesirable element recently introduced to the board, have no doubt strained us all. That the temple of Yale, which yearly on the USNWR vigil feast we have ever paid homage--yes, even Yale has turned its back upon us, because of the actions of a single lonelyvirgin. We must rest in the knowledge that there will be fire and brimstone poured upon that evildoer, hopefully by a magical invisible being in the sky. Yet even that wretch is not the concern here. We are fighting instead for the soul of AutoAdmit. It is on this theme that I wish to address our Wednesday sermon.

Over the years, of course, this board has faced attacks from without and scandals from within. We have been a persecuted and peculiar people, from the first Exodus, when we escaped the moderation of the Princeton Review, to the Leiternacht and the Night of a Thousand Cunts. Yet whenever the wolf has set himself upon the flock, sometimes by skillfully impersonating a lamb, we have proven more clever than sheep. We have not only survived--we have endured. Yea, though we walked through the valley of the shadow of grateful shiteaters, we feared no evil. We have enjoyed great fortune in this regard, not simply because of idle probabilities, but because throughout we have held fast to certain immutable ideals

We, the community of this most prestigious discussion board, believe above all that the freedom of speech necessarily holds social value as a step towards truth, however slight a step that may be. We believe that it is only in the clash of well-formulated ideas and in the minefield of tubgirl links that the constant human hunger for a true epistemology can be satisfied. And while we believe that individuals must always be responsible for their conduct, we believe strongly that there must always be a public space for people to speak without fear of censure or reprimand, a place where people are judged not by the color of their speech, but the content of their resumes.

At times like these, we must necessarily ask ourselves if there is any value in defending the vile filth that regularly pollutes this message board? Is the sexual humiliation of Holocaust victims a topic for civilized discussion? Does it really matter whether WhitePride is allowed to wear his hood on this board? Might it not have been better if we never read saltybabe's worthless thoughts? Who the fuck really wants to say hi to pensive all the time? Would any weep if Pauliewalnuts were raped by a dozen AIDS-infected leprechauns and left to dry out in the lukewarm glow of Rowan's platitudes? Is there any value to free speech? Is there any value to the First Amendment? Does free speech really matter?

Should we defend AutoAdmit?

Yes. It must be defended not merely because this sermon is posted here. It must be defended because it is the truth of humanity in the mass. If xoxo seems a corrupt wasteland of indecency and garbage, it is only because that is human nature, unfeettered by social restraints. If we shudder when we see the depravities perpetrated here, it is only because we shudder at the dark mirror of our own soul. We are like yourselves, gentle reader, only truer. We have not altered not jot or tittle of our humanity, except that we could told the truth. It conclusively demonstrates an awful truth that every priest who has ever taken a confession--for that is what we are, penitent confessors all--has known: that beneath every cherubic smile lies the sensuous, demon-frenzied heart of a naughty boy. We show people as they truly are, in all their irredeemable ugliness, in all the hues and shades of pettiness, conceit, dishonesty, malice, spite, cowardice, cruelty, greed, inanity, lust, envy, and violence.

Yet if it had been otherwise, we might have had so much the more to answer for. Whatever benefit gained Xoxo might have been like the, as we read in the Book of Kaavya, "four major department stores and 170 specialty shops" selling their homogenized products, enforcing a common standard of mediocrity, stifling dissent at the moment it was ever phrased in uncomfortable or even unusual terms. Could such an environment have given us an xoxo dungeonmasTTTer? Would a legendary schtick like Call Me Ishmael have ever stood a chance against the philistine censor, always straining for topicality while swallowing whole caravans of relevance? Might we have not naively assumed, as do the poor deluded saps in the other religions, that we will get in everywhere we apply? And if we have lost some measure of innocence, have we not gained great multitudes of wisdom? Think now and then, when you are tempted to regret this board, that you might have been like Melissa Lafsky, the high priestess of the false idol Opinionista, who trollopped through her years expecting that law would be some cauldron of half-decency, only to be tragically and amusingly mistaken.

And if there is to be any further greatness in the human spirit, it will only come when it has met trial against the worst adversity, like gold refined in the crucible. We are that crucible. Only in the white-hot heat of our relentless flaming will be forged the perfect instruments of prestige.

It thus that we stand today in defense of humanity--not the perfect or idealized humanity, constrained to the lies we are forced to say every day, whilst our secret thoughts resound a furious dissenting refrain--but the authentic human, flawed and yet triumphant, repugnant and yet strangely beautiful. And so it is that we dedicate ourselves to a dream.

We have a dream that one day all of our children, T14s and TTTs, CGWBT and WGWAG, URM and KKK, will join together hand in hand and sing in the words of the old Nigger spiritual, "True at last! True at last! Thank USNWR Almighty, we are true at last!"

This is not yet the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Upon this battle depends the survival of Cohen's civilization. Upon it depends our own shitty life, and the long continuity of our pretensions and our schticks. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Fertik knows that he will have to break us on this Board or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all the Internet may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted cease and desist orders. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if this discussion board and its common filth last for a thousand years, cool guys with cool haircuts will still say, "This was their finest hour!"

We conclude today with a psalm of hope and healing, the only fitting benediction for such a grave occasion. Please turn with me in your hymnals to #174, "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=594896&forum_id=1#7751160)