Indeed we have. And in "ordinary" circumstances and places, I'd agree with you completely.
But the sheer numbers of people whose activity runs completely counter to that very logical notion has led most of us to become rather curmudgeonly cynical of people who present themselves in a certain fashion. I am certainly guilty of it.
The problem children that come through make it difficult to truly greet sincere new posters (as I believe you to be), and I apologize for that.
Fair enough.
You know, I can't help but be enthused about how quickly things have changed over this past year. One day this summer I stumbled across the word blog and became curious about the term. I "discovered" bloggers just before the Rathergate scandal, and couldn't believe what I was witnessing. There was an information revolution going on right in front of my eyes, and most of the country still had no idea what a blog was!
Just weeks before, I was getting my conservative fix from Rush Limbaugh and a handful of cable news hacks. Now I found myself rushing home to the computer each night after work. As the blogosphere took bite after bite out of Dan Rather, I found myself emailing out advertiser contacts to all my friends and calling CBS every night on the phone.
My fiancee thought I was nuts. Every time the bloggers smacked Dan around, I'd yell for her to come to the office for an update. She asked, "What's wrong with you? Why are you so emotional about this?" My response was that I'd been seeing the MSM get away with this crap for my entire adult life, and no one had ever been given a voice to call it to account. I felt like I was watching a kid who's finally discovered that he can take the schoolyard bully who'd been pushing him around for years.
It was a glorious few months, and anyone who had a hand in that takedown should be proud. I feel privileged just to have been a witness to it.