Here’s how I read it: Dan runs his blog much the way Barnett does his. He’s got a message he wants to get across much of the time and he doesn’t like uppity students disrupting class with no movement toward his goal. Barnett’s come out and said he thinks of his blog as an informal seminar in his living room, which means there are certain limits to what he’s going to put up with regardless of accepted blogging conventions. So, yeah, sometimes he’s going to step on us just as sometimes Barnett simply ignores or deletes stuff. Don’t take it personal, and it isn’t ‘crushing dialogue’. This isn’t the open air ‘universities’ of the middle ages, ‘yo. There’s some structure at times for the intended message, and yes, sometimes something is going to be off topic enough to merit being crushed. That isn’t totalitarian—unless you’re going to say the college profs who shut down tangents are totalitarians too.

I got the ‘hairy eyeball’ a couple weeks ago for being snarky. It’s going to happen. I didn’t like it. I thought the guy I was needling deserved it, for pushing a rather white supremacist line. So?

I do agree though that some of what’s going on isn’t actual dialogue. That’s why I use the ‘lesson’ thing. But, hey, everyone gets preachy at times, and it isn’t ‘peaceable assembly’, even on the ‘net, if you bum rush someone elses stage. Dan’s actually been pretty good to answering crit on other sites from what I’ve seen. This isn’t a ‘go start your own blog’ thing(as I know you do blog elsewhere) so much as saying maybe your crit of Dan’s points might be better served in another venue then his comments sections—cribbing from one of fab’s commentors.

But whadda I know. You guys are all smarter than me, sincerely.

So I basically agree with Dan’s assessment and want to encourage him in his stated purpose of policing his comments. It’s the right thing to do.

If you have found otherwise, you are fortunate. So far.

If any of that makes me like Saddam, so be it. I will have to grow a better moustache, however, to be in his league.

“Oh, come on, Curtis. So, saying that something is disruptive and unwelcome is now akin to Bathist policy of shoving of people into woodchippers and despotic single party rule?”

To answer your question (! brownie points): I was responding to Lex’s comment, particularly the last sentence.

First it was a comment that was “too short” according to Dan, 5 letters I think beginning with “LOL” that was deleted. Then it was two long comments, on-topic, which actually roundabout answered part of Dan’s question, that got put in perpetual moderation status. — and now it’s what he’s calling monologues.

But he’s defining monologue as “anything that doesn’t answer any question I put forth whatsoever.” On-topic? P-shaw. Doesn’t matter if it’s on-topic, nor if it addresses points he or others have made in other comments. If you don’t answer his question, you are a troll. He will police his state, control the conversation, etc.

Now of course it’s his blog; he can do whatever he wants. What doesn’t agree with his standard issue and unsupported assertions, he can erase if some odd question isn’t answered. But I object to his overtures for “dialogue”.

See. Read the comments. It’s silly season. Things are way weird, Dan. It isn’t just you. The more you do, the less purely analytic you do it, the worse the people in the tank for one candidate or another are going to come after you.

Oh, come on, Curtis. So, saying that something is disruptive and unwelcome is now akin to Bathist policy of shoving of people into woodchippers and despotic single party rule? (throws yellow fallacy card: reductio ad absurdum. sure I played it too. ) *Dude*.

What value are snide one linners at this juncture, homey? Yeah, Dan’s had a groove of criticizing Obama, I haven’t always agreed with all of it, but he’s not gone the ‘he’s a dem, ergo idiot and evil’ route. So, let’s not play it as if he has, ‘kay? I don’t see this as nearly as bad as the hissy fit FabMax is having that I told him he was wrong on a single specific point(Ag in CA being done in deserts(the high and low deserts are well to the east of the state, well away from where most ag is done, but how dare I challenge the Great FabMax on that, who the hell is ry of Argghhh!?). THis isn’t saying, ‘If you contradict me you’re an idiot.’ This is saying, ‘Have a point. Make a case. Keep it above the belt. Insults to the minimum.’ That’s it.

But, on the political stuff. Dude, Dan, you ‘ve gone great guns at times to tear down Obama(poor Eddie). His flying monkeys are bound to come after you for it. Deleting their stuff is the cost of your speech. Sucks but true. We get the same type of stuff at Argghhh! when someone decides to take a rhetorical axe to Obama or pregressivism or democrats. The folks from One Utah(name Cliff) do that from time to time. Jay Sigger comes in guns blaring, and I don’t blame him since sometimes Kat gets gratuitous in her tear downs. So, yeah, it’s because it’s ’silly season’ your seeing more trolls on your political posts. Look thru Barnetts archives. You’ll likely see a peak of once off comments during the 2006 elections there.

Sorry about the shoes. Maybe you need an indoor stowage ‘box’ like they have in Japanese HS……… and a can of Lysol.

Oops, did I not advance this discussion?

But heck, this is filed under “Vanity”, so I suppose the answer to that last question depends on whose vanity we are stroking. Hmmmm. Gotcha. I’ll take my hand elsewhere, thank-you-very-much!

That’s what I do. It’s the only way.

It’s your property, and it will be ground down in a tragedy of the commons if you treat it as anything less than your property to be policed and secured as such.

I’ve been posting here for awhile but I haven’t seen this kind of stuff? Are you saying that criminals are using your blog as a public place to “tag” their criminal organization’s slogans? Perhaps we invented a new concept here, the idea of “virtual graffiti?” Maybe gangs will start trying to out blog each other the same way that gangs paint over the other gang’s symbols?