PEOPLE who argue that Northern Ireland would be a much better place if the BBC cancelled Stephen Nolan's radio and television programmes are wrong. Spectacularly wrong.
Do they also want to ban Good Morning Ulster, Evening Extra, Talkback, Inside Politics, The View, The View from Stormont, Frank Mitchell, Spotlight, UTV Live and Newsline?
Do they want to ban the politics coverage in the Irish News, News Letter and Belfast Telegraph?
Do they want to ban columnists like me and Brian Feeney - who actually makes me sound like Pollyanna - and Ben Lowry and Nelson McCausland and Fionnuala O Connor?
Do they want to ban everyone who dares to suggest that we don't live in Utopia?
Better still, do they just want to ban the people and programmes on a list they have created of those who are supposedly blocking Utopia?
Let me tell them something: if they think we're bad they clearly haven't heard what else is on offer.
There's not a day goes by when people in shops, pubs, restaurants, parks, or just passing me on streets, don't give me an earful about local politics.
About one in 20 express concerns about my negativity - although if my columns and commentary really had as much influence as they seem to imagine they have then I'd probably be first minister right now.
But the rest tell me, often in remarkably colourful and blunt language, exactly - and I do mean exactly - what they think of politics and parties and individual politicians.
Sometimes it's a plague on all their houses. Sometimes it's a plague on an individual house: "Everything would be fine if it wasn't for themuns" etc.
Have they looked at Twitter and Facebook, recently? Do they read the dozens of new bloggers and commentators who have emerged in the past few years?
Are they aware of the sheer scale and nature of the bile that passes for debate and discussion on social media?
Have they any knowledge of the activities of an army of anonymous trolls who skewer every single political conversation with the sort of accusations that wouldn't pass any legal barrier at the BBC, UTV or daily newspaper?
In other words, do the people who want to ban and boycott Nolan and others not realise that silencing him wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to what's happening in Northern Ireland?
If there was a huge demand for self-styled moderation and middle-ground politics why hasn't Alliance become the largest party here?
Why haven't we seen the emergence and expansion of new vehicles and voices since 1998? Why has the DUP/Sinn Féin support base grown from 35 per cent to 66 per cent in 20 years?
Why are we increasingly polarised? Why have the institutions been down for 14 months? Why is the future of the Good Friday Agreement a subject for serious debate?
Are we actually meant to believe that if it wasn't for Nolan, some pesky columnists and BBC/UTV political staff reporting events and asking difficult questions, that all would be well?
Of course it wouldn't. For goodness sake, even the 'nice' people in civic unionism and nationalism couldn't come up with a joint letter; opting instead for separate letters sent to separate places.
Irrespective of poll after poll since the 1970s suggesting that 65 per cent-plus support integrated education it remains the choice of a small minority.
The majority of us choose to live in us-and-them areas: living with and among our 'own sort'.
Cross-community cooperation projects - because they are still the exception rather than the norm - are deemed worthy of a photo-op.
I hear people begin conversations at meetings and panel events with the words, "Some of my best friends are..."
I'm aware - as are most of you - that we still avoid difficult subjects and conversations when we find ourselves in 'mixed' company.
I was a guest speaker at a school recently and one of the pupils made a sterling effort to convince me that the younger generation was moving on and mixing quite freely at a social level.
I asked him how he and his friends dealt with local politics: "We just avoid it. Nobody wants an argument."
I asked the class of about 30 how many of them would vote differently - they were all 16 or 17 - from their parents in terms of the constitutional issue.
Not one of them. There you have it - and I've had that response in many other schools - the next generation will mingle better than my generation, but avoid politics; and when they vote, most will vote as their parents voted, which is one of the factors underpinning the ongoing rise of the DUP/SF.
Those who want to ban Nolan for fuelling division would be better to deal with the actual roots and source of the division rather than condemn him and others for highlighting it and asking how it can be resolved.
One thing history teaches us: if you ignore unpleasant realities, or try and censor uncomfortable truths, you end up in a bigger, often bloody, mess.
