Has anyone seen Jay Stephenson’s integrity?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘integrity’ as “soundness of moral principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue, esp. in relation to truth and fair dealing; uprightness, honesty, sincerity”. I’ve been looking for that quality in the recent actions of Jay “rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata” Stephenson, and I’m damned if I can find it.

Jay has handed responsibility for monitoring the comments on his posts over to a character who calls himself ‘loboinok’. However, ‘lobo’ is apparently given free rein to delete comments based solely on his own whim. ‘lobo’ recently made the mistake of challenging me to demonstrate that the statement “all terrorists are Muslims” is false — and I did. This apparently angered ‘lobo’; how dare anyone use the facts against him? So he did what any small-minded bigot in his position would do — he deleted the comment in which I explained the facts to him, and set about trying to silence me. From that point on, every comment I made, whether directed to ‘lobo’ or not, was deleted. My account was deleted four times in twenty-four hours.

I asked Jay in email about this new policy. He replied

I have asked Lobo not to delete your comments unless they were vulgar. I will tell him again.

‘lobo’ obviously chose to ignore Jay’s instructions, because the deletions continued. And when asked again, Jay told me that the rules had changed:

here is the deal after talking to Lobo. Tone down the “liar” shit, and name calling. Debate the topic without gettin personal and you can say what you want.

Of course, these have never been a requirement for having a comment published on Jay’s blog — as long as you are Jay or one of his buddies. Jay’s ideological brethren seem to be exempt from the stricture against name-calling. And Jay himself is quite happy to call someone a liar when he feels the need.

It’s pretty clear by this point that Jay’s claim that “you can say what you want” in his comments, so long as you avoid “name calling” or “vulgar” language, is a large steaming pile of moose dung. I’m looking hard to find truth, fair dealing or sincerity in his actions. I can’t say that I have found any.

Maybe Jay can explain the sizable gap between his words, and how things are actually run on his blog. He’s welcome to do so here, if he likes.

UPDATE 07/20/06 09:56 AM EDT: I sent Jay this post, and he has responded:

After talking to Lobo, he got pretty upset. He gave up the responsibility of policing my comments and said he is taking a break from the internet for a while. You can now post your garbage on my site without worries. If they are still deleted you will know it is me deleting them.

And now we will see how well Jay himself can follow his own rules.