Comments about comments

A pro-Obama site asks whether Cannonfire practices "censorship" of its comments.

The short answer: You betcha.

The medium-sized (and slightly misleading) answer would have to do with the censorship policies in effect on Daily Kos. During the primaries, you could print any lying thing about an Approved Enemy of the Great Cause, but anyone with a kind word for the She-Demon Hillary was immediately "disappeared." PUMAs should give as they have received.

The long answer goes back to December, 2006 -- well before the advent of the Lightbringer. At that time, this site was besieged by apostles of "controlled demolition" theory of 9/11. Fortunately, that pseudoscientific malarky no longer holds the appeal that it once did, except among Ron Paul's gonzo supporters. At one time, however, the CD theory threatened to become the progressive default stance.

Thus began my alienation from all things "progressive."

The CD cultists may not have science on their side, but they do have gusto. They are relentless. They are obnoxious. Like a male dogs sensing a bitch in heat, they will camp on your doorstep waiting for any opportunity to slip inside.

(Regular readers will know why that image sprang to mind -- and in case you're interested, Bella does seem heavier than usual. If she bears a litter, no doubt some Kossack will come up with a bizarre conspiracy theory about her puppies.)

The CD-ers focused on this blog with laser-like intensity. My refusal to think as they thought gnawed at them, challenged them, and even obsessed them. They were not willing to romp and scamper in their own corner of the internet; they insisted on scoring a big conversion. Like Obots, they thought that the best way to convert was to insult.

At first, I refused to enable comment moderation. Thus, they flooded this site, asking questions and making pseudoscientific points that they seemed to believe I had never considered previously. So how do you explain Building 7, Mr Smarty Pants? Stuff like that. Only the conspiracy-spotters did not content themselves with asking short questions: They sent long, weird diatribes, flavored with insult and wrapped in a dare. If Mr Smarty Pants did not answer each and every point that very night, they were going to hoot and cackle as they did their victory dance.

And so Mr. Smarty Pants would forego his pay-the-rent duties in order to spend the night -- all night -- replying to each and every point. In essence, my beloved readers forced me to write the equivalent of a small book. In one sitting.

The upshot? The next night the madness would start afresh. The beloved readers would ask the same damn questions all over again: "So how do you explain the collapse of Building 7, Mr. Smarty Pants?" And they signaled that they would hoot and cackle and do their victory dance unless I spent another night writing the equivalent of another book.

My beloved readers would take refuge in a series of increasingly loony explanations. If there were bombs in the building (I asked), then why did the collapses begin at the impact points? Obviously, radio controls directed the jets to hit those exact spots! The fact that one jet hit lower than the other only shows just how devious those fuckers really were. And how could the conspirators know that impact would not set off the bombs? Obviously, they used thermite -- or is that thermate? -- bombs. (In real life, there ain't no such animal.) Jim Fetzer's wacky suggestion of "space lasers" is actually less wacky than the bombs-in-the-buildings scenario.

The CDers may not have had science on their side, but they had numbers, and they had a fierce determination to take over this site. For a while, Cannonfire existed to publish insults directed at Joseph Cannon.

Many of us have had the experience of allowing the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons to enter the house for a chat. After one or two such experiences, we learn from the mistake.

There is no point in engaging in dialog with fanatics who can't be dissuaded by rational counter-argument. If you tell a Mormon that there is no archeological evidence for the presence of pre-Colombian Israelite civilizations in North America, you will be told that, au contraire, we have plenty of such evidence. The Mormon will cite this "evidence" at great length, and he will not understand why all of it strikes you as being really, really stupid. It is telling, perhaps, that the only physicist among the CD-ers, Dr. Stephen Jones, also believes that he has found archeological proof of the Book of Mormon.

As a concession to the shortness of life, I no longer consider Mormons or Creationists or Tim LaHaye-esque apocalypse-spotters worthy of debate. Citing a similar concern for life's brevity, I had to tell the CD-ers that they were no longer welcome to comment here. If I did not become a censoring bastard, this site would no longer be mine. They would now be in control.

Alas, the Obots are more fanatical than the CDers ever were. They know that they are not welcome here, but they do not stop. Every hour, they post mindless insults directed at yours truly, and the fact that their words go unpublished and (largely) unread never seems to dissuade them. They do not stop. They do not stop. They do not stop!

For example: Just now I deleted a comment about Obama's tax plan. Why publish it? On that issue, all we have is his word, which I do not trust. Obama's stances on nearly every other issue have morphed, and he has lied incessantly. (NAFTA, FISA, campaign finance, the surge, Hillary...) Given that history of fibbing and backtracking, why debate the man's tax plan?

For months, I've linked to Evelyn Pringle's exposes on Obama's corruption. No-one has offered a counter-argument. A few have offered ad hominem attacks on Pringle, but such attacks do not constitute a counter-argument. Frankly, I think most Obots simply don't want to read long and difficult pieces.

The bottom line is this: I'm not paid for this gig. If I wanted to be annoyed, I'd give my creditors my phone number.

Nobody asked you to come here. This site is not a public place. It is my home. It is more my home than is the shelter in which my physical body resides. You may enter this home if you amuse or enlighten -- and even if you challenge, truly challenge. But don't expect entry if you're hawking the Book of Mormon, the Gospel of the Controlled Demolition, or the Holy Word of Barack Obama.

Anonymous insulters are deleted on first whiff. You're talking to yourselves, creeps, not to me.