Just as a historical footnote -- I banned '24' for, as I recall, either 24 or 48 hours, as a warning. I intended to unban him after that. I think the archives will reflect that this is what I said about it at the time.
However, the peace and quiet which ensued was so soothing that I forgot to unban him. He never wrote to me to complain, and we never heard from him again.
To ban him at all was a difficult decision which I agonized over for several days. But it seems to have worked out fine.
And I don't agree with Michael Irwin that banning 24 in any way sets a precedent of diminishment of diversity of participation. 24 made some noise about this sort of thing being his goal, but let's speak frankly: he was WAY "out there" in terms of an ability to communicate a coherent thought.
We should strongly welcome progressives, greens, libertarians, anarchists, Christians, Muslims, etc., SO LONG AS they aren't trying to turn wikipedia into a "progressive encyclopedia" or a "libertarian encyclopedia" or a "Christian encyclopedia", etc. Of course there will be arguments and struggles to find an NPOV, including, at times, hurt feelings and incorrect assumptions that the other person is trying to push an ideology.
--Jimbo