Every single fruitcake, barmpot, and weirdo with a grudge on the entire internet turning up and spoiling your party, if you're not careful

Ok, ok, I know I shouldn't - but Eric the Unread has, for some reason, removed his comments boxes. This seems to be something of a tendency amongst the pro-war "left" blogging fraternity (here and here, for instance; Harry's Place wobble on the issue, but they're on for the time being.). I'm sure everyone has their own good reasons for preferring to keep the riff-raff off their patch; in Eric's case, I suspect it's connected to this and this. (In Kamm's, I'd like to think that the happy exchange following the post here may have played its part.)

I think, though, that encouraging some sort of dialogue is part of the point of blogging. It keeps you on your toes. Forces you to think a bit. And when Norman Geras - as he sometimes does, or used to - bangs on about the "big conversation" taking place via blogs, I'd like to think that allowing passing trade their own little corner of your territory is a contribution to at least some of the democratic thingummy we're all apparently in on. They can do what they like down there: ideally, erect and worship small statues in your honour; more likely, kick over the fence, vomit on the laelandi and hurl abuse; but you deal with this in a benevolent landlord sort of a way, occasionally banning the clearly unacceptable.... I might suspect that the tendency to block comments indicates a gradual slide into obscurity, where the remaining pro-war "left" sites are illuminated only for the purposes of lazy anti-war rhetoric.