Mark Spahn sent a link to this blog post by the attorneys at Power Line. I agree with everything they say about anonymity, including the claim that it is "the curse of the Internet." Indeed, what the attorneys say there is what I have been saying for a long time. It's good to know that I am not alone. For those of you who haven't read my posts about anonymity, the gist of my position is that people who post anonymously (or try to) are cowards. They want to participate in public debate, but without taking responsibility for what they say. You have no business participating in public debate without taking responsibility for what you say, just as you have no business believing something without evidence. Imagine going to a town meeting with a bag over your head so that nobody knows who is commenting. I know that people fear retaliation from employers and others for expressing their views. That is a cost of doing business in a democracy. If your employer objects to the civil expression of political views on your own time and with your own resources, then you need a new employer.
For the record, I have never written or spoken anonymously in my life. I take full responsibility for what I say, and always have. Does this make me courageous? No. It makes me noncowardly. There is logical space between courageousness and cowardice.
Addendum: It's not enough to take responsibility for one's own utterances. One has, in addition, an obligation not to facilitate other people's cowardice. Brian Leiter, for example, has written the equivalent of a scholarly article about me. Most of what he says is either false or distorted, as anyone with any sense can tell by reading it. (The man hates me so much that he is willing to risk a defamation lawsuit.) Leiter "quotes" people as saying various scurrilous things about me, but never names them. Think about this. There are people out there who hate me so much, and are so bent on hurting me, that they wrote to Leiter to lie about me, knowing that, because of his demonstrated viciousness, he would facilitate their cowardice. Instead of taking responsibility for their lies, they insisted on anonymity. Leiter, to his discredit, gave it to them. It's a smear machine. It tells you everything you need to know about Brian Leiter, who, I might add, has complained vociferously about the same thing being done to him at the Volokh Conspiracy. What a hypocrite!
