Chris Pirillo posted The Blogger's Manifesto recently, and while some of it is obviously specific to Chris and/or his circle of friends ("I egosurf Daypop, Google and Blogdex nightly" and "I like linking to Dave, Doc, Evan and Cam"), the rest is a pretty good list of rules to live by if you're blogging, or journalling, or whatever.
Except for 2 and 3: "You have no right to judge me" and "If you don't like what you see, look elsewhere"
I'm sorry, but the act of performing an act in public, be it preaching on a street corner or blogging on a webserver, is an invitation for public comment, and an invitation for the rest of the world to judge what you are doing, and react accordingly.
Human beings are judgemental. It's one of the things that is hard-wired into our brains. When presented with information we evaluate it based on our existing knowledge, form opinions on it, and act appropriately. This behaviour is one of those things that defines us as the thinking animal.
Add to that the web is a two-way medium. If somebody posts their opinions and I disagree with them, there are thousands of avenues for me to post a contradictory opinion, and it's always just as valid for me to do so as it was for the original writer to exhibit theirs.
Similarly, if someone is saying something I disagree with, and I walk away and say nothing, then I am being intellectually dishonest. It is my duty to the shared medium that is the web to balance what I perceive as disinformation, with information. If I don't like what I see, I will look at it, evaluate it, and say why I don't like it.
Seeing something I disagree with isn't quite the same as seeing something that just doesn't interest me at all. Complaining about that sort of thing leads to the platoon of whiners who infest slashdot saying "That's not News for Nerds!", "It's not like it used to be!" and "Why didn't they post my article instead?" In the end, a blog belongs to the people who write it, and that right of ownership should always be respected.
It would be glib to say that the Internet is not a place for the thin-skinned. The truth is that the Internet is no more a place for the thin-skinned to wear their hearts on their sleeves than the "real" world is. In fact, it's substantially less so, because online your detractors can hide behind anonymous, flaming identities.
So, if you blog, and you get readers, you will be judged. If you don't want controversy, don't be controversial. If you don't want your opinions examined, don't be opinionated.
