I know a number of Kossaks have already discussed this issue, but I figured I'd throw my two cents in as well. In addition to my time at Dailykos, I spend a good amount of time lurking about conservative blogs like Redstate.org and Little Green Footballs. I never participate in these forums, but as a student of both politics and human nature, I like to see how people different from myself. One of the things I've discovered at Redstate-- which all things considered is a fairly even toned blog --is that conservatives frighten me.
More below the fold:
Now it's not so much the policies of conservatives that frighten me-- though I'm often disturbed by them as well --but rather it is a general attitude and way of relating to discourse that frightens me. If you follow the link to the diary below and examine the exchange between "storm survivor" and another list member I think you'll get the drift of what I'm talking about:
http://kmaher.redstate.org/story/2005/9/20/05244/7355
In this exchange, Storm Survivor responds to another list member, trying to defend democrats against certain claims that we're weak on defense. The exchange goes on for a few messages and then suddenly Storm Survivor is banned. The ostensible reason is that he's hijacking the thread and discussing something which isn't relevant to the topic of the diary (Wesley Clarke), however, he's responding to a claim that another blog participant has himself brought up. As far as I can tell, Storm Survivor doesn't use any obscene insults, he provides support for his arguments, and he makes a genuine, good faith effort to respond to the poster's remarks.
I find this incredibly disturbing. In the time I've spent lurking about Redstate, I've found that not a week goes by without someone being banned or censored for reasons that I have difficulty comprehending. Moreover, it is not unusual to hear those on the right claim that since Republicans control both Congress and the Whitehouse, they should get to decide what is and what is not talked about, thereby suggesting that they shouldn't have to listen to voices on the other side at all (as if democracy allowed us to exclude voices or ignore them altogether). This, to me, is indicative of a certain attitude towards dissent and democratic discourse. While labels such as "Nazi" and "Fascist" are overblown and counter-productive, it is precisely this sort of behavior that evokes these labels in less prudent voices on the left. Fascistically minded people are intolerant of dissent and experience disagreement as an insult, rather than as an opportunity for further discourse and more reasonable solutions.
If conservatives frighten me, then this is because I fear for a world where everything is seen in simple, black and white terms. I worry that in such a world I can easily come to be seen as irrelevant and expendable, or that if people such as this gain power, they will have no reservations about trampling on might rights. It's difficult to see how behaviors such as these apparantly arbitrary bans can be seen as anything but contrary to the principles of democracy. Not only do these practices appear to be abuses of the webmaster's powers, but they strike me as downright dangerous.