Good point!

It’s an old post now so I’ll leave it there. The reason I do the asterisk thingy is a bit like people talking about the F word – everyone knows what they are saying without actually saying it.

Frankly I think some blogs rely too much on swearing, and I tend to use it if the context requires it, or if I’m really worked up about something. Which is often.

Re – “You guys are nuts” – yes. I wouldn’t be blogging otherwise.

Re – “And I would submit that Head Rambles already follows the bcc” – do you think everyone should copy and paste my Disclaimer? Thanks BTW. I’ll take that as a compliment.

I did have a bit of flaming once. Two people started flaming each other, so I deleted both of them. They then started flaming me. You can’t win!!

Libertarian. I love it! That is me.

I agree in this case that people are free to set up a code of conduct. People can set up what they like. As long as they don’t tell me to abide by it. They can ask, and I might well oblige. But tell me, and I will rebel.

Ask me not to smoke in a pub, and I will very happily oblige. Tell me not to smoke in a pub and I will hit the roof.

My rant is with the Nanny State and people telling me what’s good for me. I know what’s good for me [and what's bad]. You are right. I believe in Liberty and the freedom of choice.

As I have said before, laws should be there to protect others from me [and vice versa] and not to protect me from myself. I know you’ll say the smoking yoke doesn’t come under this [you're right, I suppose], but plenty of others do.

I don’t really think there is any harm in what they are doing. They are broadcasting their point of view and hoping to lead a consensus. Some people feel a need to become a leader, to find some followers, to divide the world into those who subscribe and those who don’t.

I knew you wouldn’t delete my comment. Or I should say, I felt sure you wouldn’t.

Also, nothing I say will make the slightest difference to what you will do. You strike me as your own man. I’ll have to take you like that because there is nothing else on offer.
But I can’t think of you as an anarchist. To me you’re a libertarian (not a librarian).

Just when I’m having a quiet stroll down the lane of anarchy, you come jumping out of the hedge and snap at my heels like a demented terrier.

I have a good mind to delete your comment under Rule 1, Clause 1 of the Blogger’s Code of Conduct, but I won’t because I believe in free speech, and I don’t believe in the BCC. So there. Consider yourself saved by my ignoring the very thing you are trying to promote.

Seriously though – are you kidding when you say “. It enables some people to feel a sense of shared values, to be part of an “usâ€? versus a “themâ€? ? I hope so. Are you promoting a two tier blogging world? What a ghastly thought!

The main thrust of my post is that I hate the smugness of people who ‘know what is best for me’. I know what’s best for me. If I fall on my own sword, then I have removed my own stupidity from the world. Darwin rules, and all that.

Nor am I advertising the BCC. There are enough bloggers out there flaming it, that my humble effort will have little effect.

So help me out here Omani – do I abide by the BCC and delete all your future comments, or do I carry on my own form of anarchy so that you can “tune in hoping that there will be a fierce rant going on”?

The choice is yours.

We’ve had our skirmish over the law and wearing seatbelts and it would be boring to repeat that.

But, what’s the harm in someone trying to bring in a code of conduct? What’s the hard in someone making their name in the effort to civilize bloggers? By getting upset about it, you add to their publicity, you swell their sense of fighting the good fight against evil ways.

Let the bloggers’ code of conduct live. It won’t prevent you broadcasting your point of view. It give some people something to cluster around. It enables some people to feel a sense of shared values, to be part of an “us” versus a “them” (the ones who have not signed the code).

The USA seems to have a thriving community of people who believe they are “saved”. This is surely another such community – the saved bloggers.

I’m glad they exist because they give me another social group to study. They have added to the diversity of bloggers. In my mind they are the “holier than thou” bloggers. Harmlessly gathering their wits.

I get p’d off that as a Christian I don’t have the same rights as other religious groups – they can say pretty much what they like, and some of the fundamentalist Islamic stuff is pretty extreme, with impunity. Should I say one word in response or suggest that Saudi society probably isn’t the height of civilised living, then the authorities come down on my head.

The problem is that liberalism contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.

See my Disclaimer page