Great. I leave for a little while, and all of a sudden something like this flares up.

As Hesiod appears to be doing yeoman's work in dealing with SDB's baffling attempt to spin Jim Cappazola's control over his own blogroll into "censorship", I'll simply ask those who are interested to head over there.

(At some point, I will probably return to rebutting SDB's long and often sadly ill-informed essays. But not today.)

Edit: Actually, just in case SDB decides to link to me on this (as he's done in the past to my quick reactions), I will quickly stake out my position on this. Just as Jim has a right not to link to LGF, he also has the right not to link to anyone who links to LGF. Indeed, if he feels so strongly about it, to not engage in such a policy would be somewhat hypocritical, because an extra degree of seperation is almost meaningless when it comes to linking. It is consistency, nothing more.

SDB is also wrong about its relation to Mill's defense of freedom of speech. To do this is in no way a violation of Mill's ideals and arguments, as it is not in any way a violation of Mill's defense of the individual's voice against societal norms. It does not either socially or legally harm LGF's ability to disseminate information, nor is it or could it be an attempt to do so. SDB's assertion that Jim actually believes that he will influence society as a whole is absolutely and utterly ludicrous; a stretch even for the man who baselessly called me a cowardly megalomaniac based on my choice of reading material and pseudonym. Jim has taken a stand on an issue and a site that he finds disturbing and odious, and I respect him for that. That stand is as much an embodiment of freedom of speech as is the existence of LGF itself. In the current political environment in the Blogosphere, that stand is a violation of societal norms. It embodies more individual courage than anything Charles Johnson or his foolish, hateful little followers have ever written, and I respect Jim all the more for it.