Steve Gilliard writes about an interesting observation:

"Anyone on the right who wants to get noticed has to start their own blog. Why? Because of comments. Most right blogs lack them. Which, besides moral cowardice, inhibits growth.... You have Redstate, which routinely bounces people, and the trogodytes of LGF and the see no evil crowd of Tacitus for comments. The rest may well be better off without them. Powerline's owners send back responses which would embarrass angry drunks. Imagine if they had to deal with posts on a daily basis? The same with the rest of the crowd. Token negro LaShawn Barber routinely threatens posts she doesn't like with the FBI. So why don't they want to talk to their readers? Because they can't deal with the challenge."

I experienced just what Steve is talking about over at INDC Journal. Several months ago, I frequented this right-wing blog that to its credit allows for comments. However, as Steve describes, just because they offer the ability to submit comments does not mean that they're actually receptive to the idea(s). I entered a few brief comments or questions which was immediately met with attack-dog replies, more often than not of a personal nature than actually addressing the content of my comments. It got ugly!

Participating in this barrage of attacks was the blogger himself. It didn't take long for him to ban me from making any further comments on his site. I'm not tech-proficient enough to know how he was able to do this but he did. All for simply making comments or questioning things that were posted on the site -- with no foul language used on my part or anything abusive.

I wasn't surprised. O'Reilly shouts down dissenters on a regular basis. It's what they do. Sadly, those more reasonable viewers or listeners just seem to tolerate it or look past it. You'd think if their positions were so solid they'd invite healthy debate. Ah, but that's the problem.