The mod­er­a­tor in the KCFS forums right­ly banned a user there, and in response he and his lit­tle crew of hel­lions decid­ed to make a mess in the com­ments here.

I banned the two major offend­ers. A third per­son of ques­tion­able nature asked:

So are you going to ban every­one who express­es opposition?

Spo­ken like a true liberal!

I banned two peo­ple who I know to be jerks. I went sev­er­al rounds with John Davi­son and oth­er oppo­si­tion in the com­ments. That’s what they are there for. They aren’t for pet­ty thug­gery, wild accu­sa­tions, or attacks. I’ll ban abu­sive users, edit offen­sive com­ments, and do what­ev­er else I have to in order to main­tain a civ­il discussion.

That’s how lib­er­al­ism works. Every­one comes to the table with their best argu­ment, and you have it out. Every­one learns, and maybe some­one changes his or her mind. There needs to be a fair mod­er­a­tor or ref­er­ee to keep things from spi­ral­ing out of control. 

As the blog­ger and site oper­a­tor, I’m enti­tled to push my opin­ion in posts and com­ments. As mod­er­a­tor, my job is not to police opin­ions, but behav­ior. Base­less accu­sa­tions of libel, alle­ga­tions of a mas­sive “Dar­win­ist” con­spir­a­cy, etc. are not pro­duc­tive, and peo­ple who can’t con­tribute more than that don’t need to leave com­ments here.

Is any of this cen­sor­ship? No. If the jerks want to get their ideas out there, Blogspot will host a blog where they can make these same bogus claims. I can choose to read it or not. I can choose to respond or not. But I’m not oblig­ed to play host to their antics.

Their right to swing their fists ends at my nose.