NEW COMMENT POLICY: Time to separate the wheat from the chaff

Starting a new policy this afternoon: the comment feature is getting turned off. If anyone wants to e-mail me at theknightshift@gmail.com, I will read you comment there and choose whether or not to edit the post to include your remarks.

Wish I didn't have to do this, but over the past several days this blog has attracted - in addition to plenty of good and sincere readers - way too many idiots. One of them, claiming to be a Marine stationed in Washington D.C., resorted to posting threats of murder after finding himself on the losing end of a discussion. I doubt that he was a real Marine: all the ones I've known weren't hot-heads. They're also a smart enough bunch that they can think for themselves: they have to be. This one didn't have an original thought in his head. And a real Marine wouldn't threaten violence or death like this guy was: when you learn how to kill a man, you also learn how not to kill a man. Whoever this phony is, his lack of self-discipline would have gotten him booted out of Parris Island and classified 4F before "Taps" tonight.

I'm not obligated to give him a mouthpiece for his stupidity. His or anyone else's for that matter.

It did cross my mind that I could merely make the commenting available only to registered Blogger users... but that would be unfair to those who wanted to comment but had no desire to start a blog of their own. It couldn't remain something open for just anyone to post to though: not as nasty as some of them have been. All of those have come from people who may or may not have been too coward to publish their identity, so they kept it "Anonymous". It's just me doing this blog, not a staff of dozens, and I have neither the time or the desire to go through and cull out the bad ones from the good. And I believe that if you've something to say and if you really believe in it, unless you've a darned good reason for hiding your identity you better stand up where everyone can see you as you say it. Not doing that destroys the credibility of both your message and yourself.

To all the people who've been serious and considerate toward this blog, even those who may stand in disagreement with me on some things but still gave me a polite and enjoyable discussion: I apologize to you, and it hadn't come to this. But I'll strive to keep it going even if I have to add comments to each post manually.