As someone who has experienced more than my share of censorship at the hands of Dallas Blog (for example, here and here), I regret seeing the heavy hand of censorship extended even more.
I personally found the posts by people such as Geoff Staples and Wilma to be left wing, extremist, predictable, and altogether counter-productive. There were similar right wing diatribes, but these did not attract so much as a raised eyebrow from Tom Pauken. Mr Pauken defends his heavy-handed censorship by saying he censors ad hominem attacks, not differing political opinions. Well, that's not quite right. Ad hominem attacks are often allowed from the right, including Mr Pauken himself, who, for example, has an obsession with my own anonymity, attacking that instead of the logic of my arguments (for example, see here).
In the few days since the moderation has been imposed, right wing opinions tend to go unchallenged. For example, the only responses to the Dallas Blog censorship announcement itself were by Bildo, James W. Walker, Jan B., Bill De Ore and G.S. McCorkle. A token moderate voice might show up before the thread runs its course, enough for the right wingers to claim Dallas Blog is fair and balanced, but the tone of the site has taken a turn to the right.
One of the conservative readers described the postings that purportedly triggered the moderation as the "kind of behavior [that] has a chilling effect on other folks that might otherwise want to join in the discussion." In fact, the chilling effect is on the voices that dare challenge Tom Pauken and Scott Bennett and the Dallas Blog institutional opinion.
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