It’s a source of satisfaction to me that outside of dK (twice, under my own handle, not everyone can say that) and Open Left (not so open and not so left) I’ve never been booted from a web site (well, one other and it’s complicated and a story for another day) though there are plenty that have closed while I have continued writing.
Since April 1st, 2005 as a matter of fact, mostly daily.
I must admit I feel in control of my own destiny at this point, The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma are not so expensive to maintain and I’m not planning on banning myself no matter how obnoxious I am, though I could get really bored and just stop.
Hah, fooled yah.
Anyway at one point I was interested in the mechanics of Perl based blogs and I signed up for a bunch of them including Booman Tribune, MyDD, and RedState. If you poke around you can find traces of my presence, all as ek hornbeck because I never bothered trying to conceal myself beyond that caution which is pretty mandatory on the Intertubz (pick a handle and stick with it, never, ever give out your real name or address or those of close relatives and associates). I decided they were all kind of stupid for a variety of reasons and after I had made my observations I mostly dropped all of them except RedState.
Not because I agreed with it mind you but they are persistent marketers and not a month goes by that I don’t get an invite for a costly chance to be educated by luminaries like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Steve Bannon (some are even on cruises which strikes me as a very special kind of Hell- being locked up beyond swimming distance of land as a captive audience for incoherent liars among thousands of lunatic cult members salivating to be indoctrinated and eating the same meal 3 days in a row, once as dinner, leftovers as lunch, and scraps at breakfast, off a Norovirus and Legionella infested buffet. There is simply not enough Bottom Shelf Booze to make that tolerable.).
On the other hand most of the interactions I had on RedState were very polite. I never disguised who I was, but I never confronted people either. If I missed Erick Son of Erick it was by luck. I interacted with most of the Moderators who decided I was harmless, mostly, and we talked about topics of mutual interest.
Shortly after I joined there was a spasm on dK to see who could get thrown off RedState the fastest. As I recall BarbInMD won, but she went out of her way to be an asshole which was not out of character for her on dK either.
While I have been tempted at times to see if my old password still works or even go through the recovery process (the email definitely works) I have so far restrained myself because I have little to say to them or they to me. I think Democrats are conservative (even Bernie).
Still, I am tempted some times.
‘Mass firing’ at conservative site RedState
by Brian Stelter, CNN
April 27, 2018
Bloggers were locked out of their accounts — some just temporarily, while the cuts were made, and others permanently.
Erick Erickson, the site’s longtime editor who left in 2015, tweeted about what he called the “mass firing” on Friday morning.
“Very sad to see, but not really surprising given Salem’s direction,” he wrote. “And, finally, after all these years, they’ve turned off my account.”
Multiple sources told CNNMoney that they believed conservative critics of President Trump were the writers targeted for removal.
“Insufficiently partisan” was the phrase one writer used in a RedState group chat.
“They fired everybody who was insufficiently supportive of Trump,” one of the sources who spoke with CNNMoney said, adding, “how do you define being ‘sufficiently supportive’ of Trump?”
…
RedState, a 13-year-old blog that was founded by Erick Erickson, is one of several sites in Townhall Media’s portfolio. Townhall, in turn, is owned by Salem Media Group, a conservative media company that also operates radio stations and publishes books.Salem has previously been scrutinized for its treatment of radio hosts who weren’t toeing a pro-Trump line during the presidential campaign.
A source with ties to RedState said bloggers had been “wondering if this was going to happen at RedState,” meaning “anyone who wasn’t a big fan of Trump would be dumped.”
If I went in with some kind of Kardashian/Kanye “redemption” story I’d probably be on Tucker or the Ingraham Angle tonight, but regular readers know I write for myself.
Accept no substitutes.