On the previous post, my tribute to Colonol Jeff Cooper, a rather interesting debate was emerging in the comments section until late last night (UK time), when some comments were deleted. I’m looking into this, since the author obviously did not want their comments removed. The post is now shut down for further comments to preserve what is there.

Any misuse of this blog should come by email to myself or Stephen Graham (see the sidebar on the right for email addresses). Let me be very clear: we do NOT moderate your comments – they go straight onto the blog, unlike many other online forums. Some concern was expressed to me via email that we would seek to impede free speech. If you take a look back through recent archives (the comments feature was activated in June this year), many of the comments have disagreed strongly with myself and Stephen without any censorship whatever. We’re interested in all points of view, and a divergence of opinion is what makes the freedom we advocate so passionately here such a coveted thing by so many other nations.

Our only criteria (ie. our only rule) is that comments be free of abuse. Only comments that seek to destroy the flow of discussion or that become an irritant will be removed. We’re not interested in censorship.

A technical point. When you post a comment, you may see a trash can / ‘delete bin’ beside it. Only YOU should see this, and, therefore, only you should be able to choose to delete your own comment. Others will see your comment, but will not have the ability to delete it. If you find yourself with the ability to delete someone else’s post, it is a fault that we need to know about ASAP.

We were initially a little unsure about activating the comments feature at all on Libertarian Reason. In June, we finally did it and we’re very glad we did: the result is a much more interesting and vibrant place. It’s no longer just an op-ed style e-zine blog, it is potentially an arena of ideas with plenty of room for practicing what this blog purports to preach about freedom. For that, we owe you readers. Please tell a friend.

Finally, since we’re doing some rare navel-gazing in this post, I’d like to congratulate Stephen Graham and his wife on the birth of their son last week. You can tell from Stephen’s recent silence that fatherhood is taking up every precious second!; those parents among us are familiar with the feeling. And I’ve told Stephen to tell baby Daniel that I’m his bastard uncle.