I love getting comments. I get more comments in a week on my blog than I got in six months on my national public radio interview program. The radio program had an audience that was more than twice as large. Active comment contributors are something wonderful about blogs and the Internet.
This
is by way of mentioning that I occasionally delete a legible comment.
Profanity doesn't bother me neither do exaggerated or vehement
language. I love opposition and I love people who attack my
positions. What I delete (other than spam) are name calling ('you are
a racist') stupidity and people who completely miss the point.
One recent commenter attacked me on human genetic engineering saying that it had nothing to do with stem cells. That is stupid, unless some genetic engineers are working on rocks. Or someone confuses germ cells (eggs and sperm), a terminology that includes stem cells.
There are plenty of people who miss the point and just react to a title or an image and have no idea what is written in the blog.
I am endlessly surprised at the number of students who ask me to write their papers on hippies and on the arguments against democracy. Should I ask for money?
On the democracy issue, I don't argue against it, I only argue that democracy actually precedes rational thought, not the other way around. That is the history of the Dutch Republic and modern democracy everywhere else.