My blog is a benevolent tyranny.\u00a0 I welcome comments and have hundreds of them every day, many of them disagreeing with me about all kinds of stuff.\u00a0 However, I do not owe you a forum.\u00a0 You have no fundamental right to speak here for which our ancestors bled and died, just as you have no right to walk into my living room and start telling me I\u2019m fat, the food stinks, and my kids are ugly.\u00a0 You can, if you please, get your own blog and hold forth on all these important views and I will not stop you since I believe in free speech.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t believe that I owe you unlimited free speech in my living room.\u00a0 I\u2019m up for a good argument and have hosted thousands of them here.\u00a0 But I draw the line at underwriting jerkishness.<\/p>\n
So: If you find that your comments are winding up in a ban file, don\u2019t immediately console yourself with the heartwarming fiction that Shea Just Can\u2019t Handle the Truth from a Bold Prophet like Me.\u00a0 Shea gets all sorts of disagreement and criticism in his comboxes every day.<\/p>\n
Since this is so, other factors must be at work if you are finding your posts banned.\u00a0 The number one fact is typically \u201cYou are acting like an abrasive jerk and I\u2019m tired of listening to you.\u201d\u00a0 If you lack the capacity for self-reflection to entertain the possibility that you are an abrasive jerk then it\u2019s probably best if you fire off one last dramatic gust of dudgeon for the ban file and go find some place where jerks are welcome, such as a chat board for Timid Enablers of Drunken Wife Beaters.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be right at home there as you pursue that winning trademark combination of bullying and self-pity.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if you are capable of self-reflection and of considering the possibility that you are banned, not because Yours Is a High and Lonely Destiny of Speaking Truth to Power, but because you are a rude jerk and I don\u2019t owe you a forum, then you might have a future here if you write me, apologize, and ask to be reinstated.\u00a0 Your call.\u00a0 Meanwhile, don\u2019t imagine that your huffy dudgeon will give me a minute\u2019s pause, or that your accusations of censorship will draw from me anything but a wry and crooked Harrison Ford sort of smile and the barest puff of air from my nostrils as I snort\u00a0 in derision at your self-importance and continue my very busy day.<\/p>\n
Bottom line: Comments are welcome.\u00a0 So are disagreements and arguments.\u00a0 But don\u2019t be an rude jerk or you are gone.\u00a0 My blog.\u00a0 My rules.<\/p>\n
End of lecture.\u00a0 Back to the fun!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My blog is a benevolent tyranny.\u00a0 I welcome comments and have hundreds of them every day, many of them disagreeing with me about all kinds of stuff.\u00a0 However, I do not owe you a forum.\u00a0 You have no fundamental right to speak here for which our ancestors bled and died, just as you have no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[207],"class_list":["post-37419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-da-rulz"],"yoast_head":"\n