Thanks for the link, Joe.

Since you're watching the troll fumugation program with interest, let me just say that it's going far better than I expected. The discussion in the comments thread at the post you just linked is the best I've had in months.

The only people who complained about my new anti-troll policies are now gone. Two of them were banned outright and the other two left on their own accord. Everyone else applauded.

One of the best roommates I ever had is now on Abdullah's staff. He was the top cadet at the Jordanian Military Academy, and the top foreign cadet at Sandhurst. He hates the military, and said he always excels at things he hates so he can get them over with as quickly as possible. A very smart, funny, warm guy.

Growing up in one of the more powerful clans in Jordan meant that when he came to the states for an education he had never cooked, or done housework. Consequently he was a little vague on food spoilage. He'd put a loaf of bread in the cupboard expecting to come back to consume it a month later, to his great disappointment. And I once saw him get this awful expression on his face as he was eating his breakfast cerial. I offered, helpfully: "You know, milk spoils after awhile." Looking very relieved he said: "Thanks God! I thought the corn flakes were bad!"

While he was rooming with me he was also preparing to finalize his wedding, and made lots of long calls back to Jordan to make arrangements. They have some odd two-stage process of marriage, and although he had already married he still had to go through this big second ceremony that was really important one. Anyway, he bought a bed to use while waiting for his wife to join him, but wanting to keep the mattress as fresh as possible for his mate he chose to leave the plastic wrap on both the top mattress and the box springs. It must have been distinctly uncomfortable, but the guy was in love, after all.

Hi, Zaid.

TmjUtah is a regular and superb commentator on Michael's blog. He would have posted that very same comment regardless of Michael's new "troll spray" policy. Michael is rationalizing his policy by making a false correlation between TmjUtah's comment and his policy.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm one of the folks who voluntarily left MJT's blog. I have no doubt that the people I challenged are glad I left. Michael didn't like it when I challenged people's loyalty.

I am sure that in Michael's view, his policy improves the quality of his comments. It makes them more "civil" in his mind. But in my view, it diminishes the quality of his comments because those who come in and spew left-wing bullshit will not be challenged in the way they deserve, up to and including questioning their patriotism.

When someone a person who is well-informed advocates a policy that we know will harm American interests, that advocacy calls into question that persons loyalty. If Michael enforces his policy over the long-term, I think it will turn his comments into a left-wing ideological ghetto. This is because the abundant disloyal leftists will know their loyalty won't be challenged, and his right-wing commentators will tire of holding their tongues.

Hi, I'm not familiar with Michael Totten's blog (for some reason it displays in very narrow columns on my browser each time I go), and I've had the experience of being called a troll on both left- and right- wing blogs (there isn't much tolerance for moderation, good sense, or consensus nowadays). I've been giving this phenomenon some thought, okay not much, but a little.

It seems to me that those who enjoy thinking critically enjoy having their assumptions challenged -- they feel that encountering disagreement is more fruitful than continuous agreement. I believe it was Einstein that said imagination was essential to critical thinking and that critics help us to keep our thoughts fresh, rather than wooden. Or as the Dalai Lama says, "your enemy is your best friend."

The louder the chorus over "trolls", the more I receive the message, "we're not critical thinkers here!" That's all fine and well, if your comments section serves another purpose. I too like to wade into comments to find new and interesting information, but on some blogs, they take on a social aspect akin to a town diner. One wonders if they're main purpose is to inflate the blogger's (apparently sensitive) ego. It'd be nice if such "places" were openly advertised as such, but of course that won't happen. In the meantime, political discourse gets dumbed down to the lowest common partisan factor. Readers are ill-served, and if the blogosphere is supposed to play the vaunted role of 'citizen liberator', our society is ill-served. The comments begin to ressemble fan sites!

llort,

That only works if your "opponent" is intellectually honest, and willing to engage in something approaching a civil discussion of ideas. If he's consistently evasive, prone to goalpost-moving, and frequently makes ad hominem attacks without addressing points of substance, then his contribution to the marketplace of ideas is zero. This would be a troll.

Obviously, the term can be misused, and over-enthusiastic troll-banning can lead to an echo chamber. From my reading of Michael J. Totten's comments section, however, this is most definitely not the case. Due to the impact of a very few commenters, the threads had become practically unreadable. The situation appears to be improving, though, and the change is welcome.

I'm sure it's a typo, but the date was 23 October, 1983.

It may well turn out that all the terrorists we need to deal with are some flavor of muslim. That possibility doesn't authorize me to think that all muslims are necessarily terrorists, nor that I as an individual can adopt their worst behaviour just to salve my grief. I'd look pretty stupid trying to teach my daughters how to be citizesns of a Republic based on the fundamental rights and rule of law if I had to put on a sheet and hood to do it.

We need to remain focussed on the strategy of dealing with these people at the level of specific political movements and organizations, and we must be effective. The historical progression of lethality of terror attacks does not suggest an upper limit to their ambition to cause death on a massive scale. The rhetoric of the Islamist movement rejects even the notion of any such sentiments.

It is enough, in their eyes, for one to be merely infidel to be sentenced to death. A further step in the same vein is the willingness of the terrorists to knock off the odd muslim as collateral damage and then celebrate their misfortune as martyrdom. They may see this as some sort of obscene advantage in the short term, especially as we (well, our media and some certain political demographics) obsess over Abu Ghraib and the holes and toppled walls in some few mosques on distant battlefields.

They do not understand us, and they do not comphrehend the cost associated with confronting a wrathful, unified, America. If our minority party had not elected to exploit the unavoidable uncertainties, setbacks, and burdens inherent in any war, our media would most likely be sending a strong message that our resolve was unshaken and our commitment unfailining in our drive to deny support or sanctuary to terror. Instead our mass media devotes itself to twenty percent objective coverage and eighty percent editorializing and punditry focusing on domestic political advantage. Somehow, it always has to be about us...

The enemy must wonder what number of dead innocents, killed in what horrific fashion, it will take for us to take them seriously. I pray we get it together before we goad them into finding out. I truly do.