It was but this morning when a fellow member's blog appeared on the front page. Its title, raising awareness about government regulation in a certain industry, intrigued me, so I clicked, and I read it thoroughly. The post amounted to a lot of slogans without much substance to the actual argument, and therefore I brought up some of these issues in the comment section.

The author and I ended up participating in an exchange, which was civil and on the whole rather bloodless, though it was clear that I found some problems in the argument he is trying to present. He was even nice enough to send me a friend request.

However, when I signed in a few hours later, I found that my posts had been redacted, censored, and expurgated. Only the blog's author and myself are able to do this. And I didn't do it.

So why can't people deal with divergent opinions? Must I be censored simply because I brought up some logical issues in the author's argument? This is not about whether my comments were right or wrong, or whether his position is right or wrong. The question is not whether our opinions and arguments are right or wrong, but can we have reasonably civil dialogue about our opinions and arguments. It is certainly the author's right to limit commentary, but when he does so he forfeits any claim that we the public ought to pay him any attention, respect, or legitimacy. If he doesn't want anyone to comment, he can be alone with his self-made righteousness.