Okay, since everyone else has been going ballistic over this (well, if not everyone else, then certainly plenty of folks), let me throw in my two cents.<\/p>\n
In a time of great moral and political crisis — the War on Terror and its associated follies and challenges — passions get heated. Damn, they should <\/i>get heated. Whether you think the greatest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is Islamofascism or John Ashcroft and the rest of the Shadow Government, being impassioned is a good thing. Being sullen, silent, and withdrawn is not.<\/p>\n
Which, in part, is why the latest Big Craze in the blogosphere has me irked, to wit, not only removing links to sites you disagree with (“delinking”), but doing so pointedly, as though this were some great Moral Triumph over Evil. <\/p>\n
To go further, some folks have actually, formally, and with great fanfare, delinked folks who have links on their pages to folks they dislike. In other words, it would be like my saying, “You know, Doyce has a link in his blogroll to [The Nexus of All Evil], and I can’t stand those folks, so I’m getting rid of my link to Doyce’s page, because the linker of my enemy is my enemy.” Or something like that.<\/p>\n
Now don’t get me wrong. What you link to from your page is your business. What I link to from mine is mine. And if I do something on my page, including having a link there, that you find horribly awful and mean and nasty and irreedemably evil, it’s certainly your prerogative to not only delink me, but to never read me again.<\/p>\n
But …<\/p>\n
1. Don’t be an asshole about it<\/i>. Don’t get up on a soap box and talk about what a fine human you are by removing that offending link. Don’t shout the virtual equivalent of “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Don’t toot your own horn. It’s not that big a deal, and smacks of self-aggrandizement and self-righteousness, which in most polite society is consdered d\u00e9class\u00e9<\/i>. Not to mention stupid and obnoxious.<\/p>\n
2. Don’t lean on your friends<\/i>. Deciding to delink someone because they have a link to NAMBLA or something is your choice. Telling them that if they don’t get rid of that link you’ll delink them is coercive. It reads like, “If you want to be in my <\/i>club, you can’t be in their <\/i>club.” <\/p>\n
Now, maybe you can’t be a friend (or reader) of someone who has a link to Those People. Fine. If you have to coerce them into dropping that link, does that make them a more suited friend (or writer) to you?<\/p>\n
Note, of course, that while this sort of behavior is rude, and stupid, unfriendly, and counter-productive, it’s not “censorship.” If John Ashcroft tells you that if you don’t delink from that page, he’s sending the Feds over, that’s censorship. If Joe-Bob ReadMyBlog tells you if you don’t delink from that page he’s going to delink you, that’s just Joe-Bob being an asshole.<\/p>\n
One of the joys of the World Wide Web is that web <\/i>aspect — the idea of interconnectedness, that you can go from place to place in an undending chain of links and cross-references, learning more, seeing more, discovering new things. Efforts by folks to “sever” those weblines to certain places and opininons through organized boycotting campaigns threatens the fabric of that web, and ultimately impoverishes all of us. It encourages insularism, and ultimately it makes everyone “sullen, silent and withdrawn.” Which would be a hell of a shame, if not suicidal, at a time like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, since everyone else has been going ballistic over this (well, if not everyone else, then certainly plenty of folks), let me throw in my two cents. In a time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2218,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/24\/we_have_a_winne.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":0},"title":"We have a winner!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Jul-02 8:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Since 9-11, there's been heated debate about how we can or should be screening airline passengers as potential threats. A number of folks have argued, intuitively, that developing profiling systems...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32791,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/11\/civil-unions-in-colorado.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":1},"title":"Civil Unions in Colorado","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-Mar-13 10:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's about damn time.Oh, and to the GOP rep who lamented, \"\"It infringes the free exercise of religion and moral conscience\" because it doesn't allow individuals and groups to discriminate against gays\u00a0because they think God is telling them to do so ... you are precisely the reason so many people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9965,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/05\/tipping_point.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":2},"title":"Tipping point","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Oct-06 6:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've read a lot of folks wondering why -- after everything else that's gone on under the GOP leadership of the Congress and White House in the past five-plus --...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18664,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/bryan-fischer-is-still-a-dolt.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":3},"title":"Bryan Fischer is (still) a dolt","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Sep-10 2:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Drumming up the troops to help block a repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law (which the GOP managed to block from even coming to debate), here's Fischer at his ranty and irrational finest: This is critical. This is one of the most important votes that is going to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"bryan fischer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/bryanfischer-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8895,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/03\/28\/toy_safety.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":4},"title":"Toy safety","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Mar-06 1:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As much as folks pooh-pooh the overzealous protectiveness of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, a glance back at a 19th Century Encyclopedia indicates why such things came about: CHEMICAL TOYS,...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41857,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/29\/raising-a-moral-child.html","url_meta":{"origin":3395,"position":5},"title":"Raising a moral child","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 29-Apr-14 11:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article on what current science shows are the best ways to raise kids that are kind and generous.[1]Executive summary:1. Praise good character2. Shame bad actions3. Parental actions speak much louder than words.Makes sense to me.[1]Some folks think kindness and generosity are not moral. 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