Anyone who knows me, either in real life or through e-mail correspondence, should be well aware that I am a steadfast defender of freedom of speech. I consider it to be the most important right any democratic society can have; it is, in a sense, the right upon which all other rights depend. That is why I support only the minimum necessary restrictions on it, such as laws which ban harassment or incitation to criminal activity, and oppose all other restrictions on speech, however well-intentioned. I firmly believe that the antidote to a bad argument is a better argument, and that attempting to silence hateful or erroneous speech by force inevitably just drives it underground to flourish. In the public square, I believe freedom of speech should be as expansive as it possibly can be.

However, this blog is not the public square; it is private property. That said, because I want to practice what I preach, I will do my best to imitate a public square, and run it to the best of my ability as a benevolent dictator. I hereby pledge that sincere, thoughtful, relevant and civil comments will never be deleted. Comments that are profane, threatening, abusive, repetitive, or spam will be edited or deleted, at my discretion. Comments that merely display egregious errors of logic or fact will be left intact so that we can all point and laugh at how silly you are.

UPDATE: Also see the revised and expanded comment policy.