A stifling cloud of dred hung over the community. Two rivals had met in the streets and the violent encounter fueled fears of reprisals and vigilantism. To reign in the terror, the community enacted an ordinance to prevent gangs from disturbing the peace and defacing the town. When a few objected to the ordinance and challenged it by refusing to comply in open defiance, the town marshal led a posse out to round up the malcontents and encourage them to fall into line. What happened next has become Western legend and myth: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Tombstone, Ariz. attempted to police its streets by requiring all gun toters to hand over their weapons when they entered town. A community hope — by removing the dangerous weapons — for peace and quite. The ordinance sought to achieve noble results, but questions about its intent, scope and exactly how far one had to travel into Tombstone with a gun, led to an inability to enforce the new code. It didn’t achieve the expected result and actually led to more violence, hate and eventually the deaths of many good and bad people.

A Blogger’s Code, with its hokey sheriff’s badges, seems another hopeless attempt to enforce civility upon a community unwilling to bow down to the sentiments of a few citizens. How to enforce it, how far can you go before violating it, and will it stop blogger violence are all legitimate questions resulting from the suggestion of a code of conduct. Not to mention it presumes to enforce restrictions contrary to the First Amendment, which protects free speech even when it offends or becomes vitriol.

Sure we’d all like to think we can be civil, kind, respectful and good citizens, but that must come from within: you can’t create some sort of community standard of civility and good behavior with a new set of rules. Besides we already have them in various forms and tenants derived from theology, philosophy and laws handed down over 4,000 years.

Placing a badge on a blog won’t make it any less prone to objectionable language or perceptions of hate. People will always find something objectionable, whether it be the message, an inability to develop an idea or abuse of grammar and language. In turn, the standards continue to fall until we’re left with nothing to say, nothing to debate and nothing to publish.

Enact a Blogger’s Code and we might as well turn in our pens. Without the courage to solicit comment, debate an idea or offer the occasional snide remark, anything we write or say might as well just be tossed to the wind or locked away where no one can use it to potentially harm anyone.