Being a self-confessed liberal and a bit of a contrarian I enjoy a debate now and then with my compadres on the other side of the ideological aisle. I have always enjoyed sparring with folks whose beliefs are opposed to my own.

I'm starting to think that this is a liberal trait and not a conservative one, for the most part. A few months ago when I posted views contrary to the ones on their message boards, Free Republic pulled my posts (to be fair I've been told that Democratic Underground does that too although I've never seen it done, personally). Then recently I posted at a proBush blog three or four times...very careful not to be strident but to be moderate...and the owner of the blog banned me. I can only assume it was because I wasn't towing the party line.

Then a few days ago Dean's World had a blog thread up about the war in Iraq. The premise was that Iraq was going great and that liberals were just mad and the liberal media was just trying to give the President a black eye. So I posted a contrary view and argument...and being me I backed it up with statistics and polls. Yesterday I go to post over there...and they've banned me. LOL

Now I realize that folks have every right to remove posts or block people from posting. It's their blog...most of them probably pay for the service they use. But what's the big deal with dissent? Why do so many people (especially conservatives, it seems) have such a difficult time with views that are different from their own?