Welcome to my living room.  Everyone is invited! Come on in, make yourself at home.

We’re having some interesting discussions and debates here, about politics, religion, music, society, television, movies — just about everything. You are welcome to join in.

Hey, come on in. Have some hors d’oeuvres. Vegetarian, of course. Watch out for the cats.

And I don’t mind debates. Heck, I love debates. I debate for a living. People pay me to debate.

However, I expect you to debate reasonably, using facts and logic, while citing reliable sources to support your position. I can be tough on you if you debate sloppily or make traditional debating errors, and will call you out on them.

That doesn’t mean I am insulting you, nor does it mean I don’t want you to be a friend any more.

Sometimes my friends (and I) can lose our tempers and say things we shouldn’t. I would hope it doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, a reminder usually helps. I am more willing to forgive friends who slip every once in a while than I am of someone I don’t know coming into the living room and immediately being impolite.

And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?  I invite you in to participate in discussions, but if you walk in and the first thing you say is insulting and demeaning, it doesn’t say much about you, does it? Why should I welcome impolite people into my living room? I think I am fully within my right to ask these people to leave and eject them by force if necessary.

Remember: You don’t have a right to come into my house and argue with me and my guests. Quite often, when I make people leave, they complain that I am violating their freedom of speech — which only goes to show that I was probably right to eject them. If you don’t understand how freedom of speech works, it’s unlikely you were going to present any sort of reasonable debate anyway.

Bottom line: Everyone is welcome. But if you come in my room for the sole purpose of arguing, yelling, and insulting people, that welcome is rescinded and you will be removed.