Banning and Ron Paul

A couple of days ago, RedState decided to ban Ron Paul supporters from commenting on its blog. The ban applies only to recent arrivals and not to longtime RedState commenters.

Captain Ed says such a ban is a mistake because it is better to engage and defeat stupidity than stop stupid from happening.

Having dealt with a certain brand of stupidity myself on multiple occasions (see also here, here and here for more examples), I can see the point of a blanket ban on dumbness, particularly with a big site like RedState.

On the other hand, banning whole groups of morons takes the fun out of laughing at them, and gives them ammunition for their paranoid screeds. It's one thing to disallow a particular poster from repeatedly lying. It's another to ban everyone with a certain opinion.