A good, substance-heavy debate has followed my piece over at the Platform against legalising drugs. The majority of responses - perhaps like the majority of active right-of-centre bloggers - are libertarian in tone and disagree with me. Fair enough.
But - at the risk of being pilloried - I think that there's rather a lot of playing the man and not the ball. I don't just mean that anonymous posting allows people to chuck abuse - in fact, in this example, there's really none of that. But I do suggest that it's an example of the fact that it seems fashionable in the blogosphere to be abusive about a person who's written something with which you disagree, rather than simply setting out the fact that one does disagree.
I suppose all I mean is that people are comfortable with an online persona through which they say things they wouldn't (one imagines / hopes) say in conversation. The restraining influence of a person on the other end of the comment seems absent, and the fashion for aggro, boisterous scorn rather pronounced.
Thoughts?
