Mailvox: Am I annoying?

A reader who shall remain anonymous asks if they are annoying me and if I would prefer that they refrain from posting. The short answer is no.

The longer and more precise answer is: probably, but so what? If you’re annoying me enough that I actually want you to stop posting, I will tell you in the Comments that you are annoying me and I want you to stop posting on that subject. If you ignore the warning, I will ban you and delete your future posts should you use a different IP address and continue to post in a recognizable manner. The ban is nothing personal, and if you post reasonably in the future, I don’t mind at all if you’re back under another name or whatever. In any case, this hardly ever happens. Otherwise, annoy away. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, heck, I’m usually surprised so many people do.

However, I do not feel that I need to explain myself every time I dismiss an argument. Those posting here are not only politically diverse, they are of varying levels of age, knowledge, education, experience and intelligence. What is new to one may well be old to another, indeed, it may be thousands of years old. I, for one, was shocked when I learned that women in the military as social engineering was first broached in Plato’s Republic. There is nothing new under the sun, not much, anyhow.

If I am short and dismissive of your argument, I suggest that you ask your fellow blog readers why they think I am doing so. There are plenty of smart people here, and chances are that they not only know why but will be more inclined to explain than me. Believe me, I’m not going to write my one-thousandth critique of the Labor Theory of Value every time a Marxian pops up, instead I will almost surely mock them briefly and move on. While it’s true that insulting isn’t persuading, neither is it an automatic admission that you know what you’re talking about. Sometimes, it’s just my recognition that it will take a good bit of reading before you can even begin to have a reasonable conversation with me.

Since politics has much to do with economics, and since very few people know anything at all about economics while I happen to be trained in the theories of the three (four if you count monetarists separate from Keynesians) economic schools, this is bound to happen from time to time. I’m always pleased to argue arcana with a true believing macro number cruncher like WB, but if you don’t know C+I+G, well, I just don’t have any interest in revisiting 101. But maybe someone else does.

So, develop a thick skin and learn to choose your shot. If I survived four years of Marxians and Keynesians doing their best to slash apart my Austrian arguments, you’ll survive the occasional metaphorical spanking and perhaps even deliver one from time to time.