Healthy Discourse

This one's a bit of a ramble, but I mean to get it out quick. I want to thank the people who emailed me and wrote in my guestbook regarding my recent post; both supportive and challenging messages have prompted me to think about free speech, codes of conduct, and what it means to be a fair-minded person. I also want to acknowledge the thoughtful responses made by Nate and Sage. The discourse around here in the last few days has veered towards meta-meta-blogging, and I know my role in stirring things up. The point of this post is to take responsibility accordingly. First, the current/temporary link to the Code of Conduct atop the Discovery feed is due to my last post. Anyone who's ever misbehaved in school (or in the workplace) which resulted in a blanket statement made by the teacher/principal/management to everyone else knows the feeling of culpability. I don't regret writing the two posts that led up to it, but I would regret not extending fairness to Herman since there's a sense…