"I wanna be … your banhammer"

No, I really don't.

Holy moley. It's going to be a long presidential campaign.

I mean, I know politics are volatile and emotion-invoking and capable of making people say intemperate things. But I'm a big believer in Thomas Jefferson's comments in Notes on Religion:

'Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.'

And, having been a board moderator in a couple of occasions in the past when things got hot and contentious and I was forced to exercise the mighty power of the banhammer, it's something I really hate to have to do. It just means hard work and hurt feelings and brouhaha and constant vigilance.

But jumpin' jimminies, folk, when a post about Hillary Clinton's candidacy invokes personal insult, sexist obscenities, and the sort of stuff you see scribbled on bathroom walls … yeah, the banhammer is here, warmed up, waiting, and I will wield it in comments on my stuff here.

(That includes mentions of "Killary," which doesn't even pass the clever-once test.)

(Ditto for the same sort of scatological brain dribbles regarding other candidates, of any party. Though those might garner a warning.)

Debate, discuss, opine, make broad and doltish generalizations, whatever. But practice a modicum of civility, or you're out the door. I don't need it, and neither do the regulars around here.

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