I guess I'd better register "Harry H. Harrison" before anybody steals my name.

How Blue Oregon is not like China...

They only have control over their blog, not the rest of the blogosphere in the United States.

It is privately owned/maintained.

They get to make their own rules, just like you make your own rules (Haven't you banned people from participating in this blog in the past?)

Blue Oregon is not a national government.

Blue Oregon has no desire to enforce their rules on everyone in the country.

Pretty weak sauce, don't ya think? How many protesters has Kari disappeared?

How many protesters has Kari disappeared?

Give it time - he's not in power yet.

God Bless Kari Chisholm, but BlueOregon has always been the online mouth for State of Oregon Democratic Party. If you want a progressive, give the middle finger to The Man type conversation, then BlueOregon is not the place.

BlueOregon is the place where aspiring members of the political establishment within the Democratic Party go to write a fluff piece in order to get in good with Jefferson Smith's step-mother and her comrades.

What I will say though, Carla Axtman is the best contributor over at BlueOregon simply because her posts rile conservatives so much. Carla can tell a simple personal story and you get reaction from it over the Oregon Catalyst and NW Republican (when Ted Piccolo is not busy misspelling words on political brochures).

All in all, Blue Oregon like The Oregon Catalyst do what they are intended to do. Personally, I have commented there and don't feel the need to do so anymore, not because they placed in the Facebook verify system. Rather, the topics don't get me excited and the lack of anonymity scares away commentators who would come into a thread, derail it, and change the "conversation" as they say on NPR into something more interesting and vehemently personal where guys wearing turtlenecks are called out for being wine and cheese wimps.

I guess anonymity is good for discussion now that I think about it.

The folks at Blue Oregon would behave just like Castro or Chavez if they had the same power. Ever pay attention to how shrill they get if anyone disagrees with them? Carla would be in charge of the prison system in the BO world and she would pull finger nails just for fun.

The Columbian went to this system June 1, 2011. However,the paper has allowed a section, Forums, to continue. Readers may communicate in a limited way with each other without using Facebook. New York Times and Oregonian use the same system as this blog and the Forums section of Columbian.

...the lack of anonymity scares away commentators...

I'd go easy on old Ted if I were you.

I love that one comment earnestly presenting the ways Blue Oregon is not like China. As a comedy writer, that's the kind of thing that makes my day.

I think my friendship with John Callahan, the late great cartoonist, started over one China joke I told him:
"China is going to be hosting the Olympics in the few years and you can tell it's a police state. One of the new events is synchronized thinking."

Uh oh, now we're back to Blue Oregon again.

I'm kidding. China and Blue Oregon actually have many key differences.

Red China, Blue Oregon.

The move towards forced socialism is something the left would really like to pretend they never supported (still got your little red book?)

I have no doubt that if you gave a hard lefty or hard righty unrestricted power, they would impose tyranny.

All you have to do to prove this is ask what a lefty would do about global warming (the failing theory of human-caused climate change) if they had dictatorial power.

For a hard righty replace global warming with abortion.

Blue Oregon even advocated for concentration camps for their opponents:

“It's time for a US Societal Re-education Campaign”
http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/11/its-time-for-a.html

Thanks
JK

JK, bless your library mind and computer.