Please tell me it was Willy Snout

Well, Thank Goodness! He absolutely irritated me to death!

Obviously I haven't been keeping up with the comments lately!

OT Sorta: The CD by 3dB Down with your song on it arrived today. I'd recommend buying from CD Baby based on their quick shipping alone. Well, AND their amusing notice of shipment. I'm saving the listening part for the drive to work tomorrow morning.

To paraphrase Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, "I'm gonna miss that guy. We should send him a fruit basket."

If it was Willysnout, I'm betting he did it deliberately so you would ban him. He was asking for it. Literally.

Oh well.

Patrick C. -- Willy stated exactly that, more than once. He thought it would validate his assertions of this being a partisan site ... but Greyhawk said it best:

(Greyhawk and other MilBloggers) are making history; (the trolls) are making noise.

Greyhawk wasn't the first, either -- I did a Google search on his alias last night. Willy appeared over at Blackfive recently, made one post at SMASH's a while back (I'm surprised he only left one there), and he even showed up spewing similar political garbage on NON-political websites.

One might ask why I kept responding to his posts, at a frequency far higher than I normally due here at Mudville. It's simple ... if a Big Lie goes unchallenged, it begins to stick to your reputation. His broad-brushes were akin to being called "racist", in my book ...and I will not let that kind of garbage stick to me. Period.

The same thinking makes me thankful that Greyhawk finally cut him off.

Now, we can get back to more intelligent discussions!

You know, the 1st Amendment applies to government restrictions on speech. No webhost is under any obligation whatsoever to host anyone he does not care to - for any reason or no reason at all; just as in your own home. The New York Times can refuse to print anything it chooses; it's just that the government can't tell it what to print, or withhold (in most cases).

This particular sick person would have lasted one or two posts on any website I controlled.
Your idealism and patience are admirable - but misguided.

Thanks for taking action, and for your service to our country.

BTW - I'd look for a reappearance under another alias.

I use to never ban. But then a fellow blogger told me "its your blog. Why should you put up with things that offend you?" And he was right. So as soon as they cross the line, I ban them You waited longer than I would have.

GH, I've banned one person in my time, and it was after a long career of direct, personal insults and even attempting to get me fired from my job. That wasn't what got him bumped. It was direct physical threats he made against other posters.

Nobody ought to tolerate that. A blog is a space you create; ones that draw a lot of commenters are like neighborhood bars. If you don't want the place to turn into a thug-infested nuisance you have to bounce some butts out the door when they get obstreperous.

This is not a "free speech" issue. Anyone can start a blog. Doesn't cost a cent. If your commenter wants to spout his bile, he's welcome to do so in his own home. He's not born with a right to do so in yours.

Even I would have banned that joker.

Welcome to the club.

'Course I should add I also asked people who commented to stop talking about the banned member, because it seemed a bit unfair to hold a forum about somebody you had deprived of the ability to defend himself. But that may be putting too fine a point on it.

And of course he snuck around the ban repeatedly by changing ISP numbers somehow.

Later Tater,

I am going to miss Littlest G eating his lunch :)

I too use to have a ban on banning commentors. But in a recent post on the death of Spc. Carrie French, I had one arse-hole who kept interupting the dialog to say that Carrie had "died for nothing", "died for lies", and a bunch of other DailyKos-talking points.

Well, Carrie's family and friends were reading and commenting also. And I didn't want them to have to put up with that kind of BS. At least not in my house. So, I banned him.

And you know what...it felt good to 'erase' him from my site.

I am but a knat on the ass of the blogosphere, but I have had to ban 2 folks, one that used multiple IPs. My take has been, "It's my sandbox, poop in it and you are put in the kennel."

Free, spirited debate is great. Smearing trolls are a totally different matter.

Rich Casebolt: "Willy stated exactly that, more than once. He thought it would validate his assertions of this being a partisan site ..."

That's what I meant as literally asking for it. I saw the "I DARE you to..." postings too.

Basically, it looks like he was trying to feed his martyr complex and it drove him to get more and more obnoxious. Of course, his slander and threats will probably not be mentioned by him if he wails about how Greyhawk banned him. Of course, it's less a free-speech issue and more an "eject drunken boor from living room" issue. I'm sure he won't mention that either. Has to be seen as OPPRESSED ya know.

I've run into the type before.