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Blackmon: Free speech shouldn't mean cheap thought

"Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose."

I've heard that all my life. It always has seemed a good message of moderation and is applicable to just about any of the rights people scream about these days.

Your property rights don't give you the right to damage or devalue mine. Your freedom of religion doesn't give you the right to make me participate in your rituals. Your personal freedom to not wear a motorcycle helmet or a seat belt should not require me to pay for your medical treatment and disability when you sustain avoidable injuries. Your freedom of speech doesn't give you the right to anonymously hurl lies and insults about my family or me.

Oops - that last one is all wrong. The old laws about libel, defamation of character and slander seemed to have gone away, taking truth with them, when the Internet produced blogs and reader comment sections in online versions of newspapers.

I'm appalled at the hurtful, thoughtless, disrespectful and mean things people will say about others when they have the cloak of a user name that need not be their real name. In recent comments on this newspaper's Web site, as well as a number of others I read, I've seen people called liars, cheats, idiots, morons, Neanderthals, ugly, stupid, racist, sexist, Nazi, socialist, communist, terrorist and more.

Knowing this is a Pollyanna approach, I'd nonetheless love to think some ground rules would help. At any rate, I need to get these off my chest:

► Just disagreeing with someone doesn't make the other person a liar. People on all sides of arguments are capable of cherry-picking statistics and interpreting "facts." Question the figures, argue with the interpretation, present data of your own. There are civil ways to deal with this.

► A person's appearance, height - or lack thereof - and weight rarely have anything to do with his or her competence. Obviously there are some jobs - athletes come to mind - for which there are physical requirements. But good looks don't make a good educator. Height doesn't make a good elected official.

► While we're on the business of looks, I know some seriously conservative folks who dress like 1960s hippies. I know some left-wingers who look as if they stepped out of Brooks Brothers. Contrary to the old saying, clothes do not make the man, or the woman.

► Don't presume to know someone else's motives. For example, acc

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