One commenter said they were afraid that their particular suggestion “might be overstepping the bounds.”

It didn’t.

But the point is that BUGS has no room for people who go to pieces because you DO overstep the bounds. This gives you a chance to simply say what you are thinking.

There are two reasons people fear to make suggestions that might be taken badly.

One is the human time bomb. Stormfront’s Religious section was famous for that. People were regularly cut off for saying the wrong thing or endless pages were devoted to why someone should be cut off.

So we simply have no room in BUGS for touchy people.

But this has another side to it. Our own commenters have a tough skin, too. My black little heart is gladdened when a person who uses the term “anti” is viciously and unapologetically denounced.

A person who spots one of us — including Lord Robert Hisself — saying something stupid and destructive should SAY so.

There is time to be diplomatic but there is also a time to let ‘em HAVE it.

This is all more effective if you carefully reserve the totally unkind remarks for when somebody really needs to be called down, as when they use “anti.” Extreme remarks are for extreme situations.

On the other hand, someone who needs constant kindness and diplomacy doesn’t belong in BUGS. This is a rough place.

Wars DO tend to get a bit rough.

This also gives me a lot of freedom. I keep telling you that a lot of my ideas are developed right here. You allow me to talk things out here, to think out loud in front of an intelligent and critical audience.

We are exploring a whole world of logic and observations here that no one is allowed to even THINK about elsewhere. When one is thinking in areas no one is allowed to delve into, you are inevitably going to say some totally stupid things.

Many, many of the things I have said here over the years contain embarrassing nonsense and factual nonsense.

Some of the corrections have been as disrespectful as they deserved.

I am a battle scarred old hard politics vet. That doesn’t bother me.

I only feel let down when someone does NOT tell me when they believe I am just plain WRONG.

It’s simple, but it’s always true: You only arrive at the truth by stating your proposition and having others do you the service of shooting it down.

Old Bob is NOT a human time bomb.