Friday, July 28, 2006

Tolerance

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom has stopped posting (pretty much) in order to pursue a legal solution to a problem with a commenter who appears to be mentally unstable and a potential threat. Legal solutions take time and money and I would encourage those who enjoy Jeff's work to visit his site and hit the tip jar.

There is an issue in this instance and in the situation in which Seixon finds himself that requires some thought. (Seixon is receiving threats because of factual comments which he left on some lefty sites.) The issue has to do with regulating access (or in Seixon's example accessing) private property. Blogs aren't the town square and no one has a First Amendment right to utter whatever they please without consequence. The property owner has the right (if not, sometimes, the means) to control access. Apparently, some bloggers feel that limiting access to their comment sections is an act of intolerance. No one deny them to do as they please with their own property but the corollary to their tolerance is a minimal responsibility for what may occur as a result of that tolerance.

It's not really much different than what has occured as a result of the West's tolerance in dealing with islamist savages, is it?

Or is that too intolerant?

UPDATE:Patterico has a good explanatory post up - if you're not au courant with the situation.

SECOND UPDATE: Jeff's back up. No word on how he has 'taken care' of the matter. If it's a restraining order he needs to assess the value of the paper upon which it is printed.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, I have deleted a couple of posts off here, without so much as a vote.

cf said...

Jeff should not go off line for this. He should ban her, sue for tortious interference with business and seek an immediate tro.

Rick Ballard said...

I don't know about that. My experience with people with mental disease would lead me to think about proactive protection measures (which Jeff is taking) before being concerned about continuing to publish.

I don't find feeding pyschosis to be amusing whatsoever and I don't see any purpose being served by leaving pyschotic rants up in for everyone to read. There must be a rationale for it but I can't find it.

Rick Ballard said...

Hi Lurker,

I was referring to his comment "Back when all this is settled. Once and for all."