"Throwing around false accusations about the eighth commandment cheapens the actual times we all break the eighth commandment. Like an unenforced speed limit or eighteenth century law about watering a mule in the city limits, it just turns the actual law into a joke. Worse, it is an attempt to control the behavior of others because they may be writing or saying something disagreeable. It is an example of Augustine’s “libido dominanadi,” the “lust for domination.” And since we can’t be hauled into court in the LCMS and bled dry of money by having to hire a canon lawyer, the best we can do is to assault someone’s reputation and try to destroy him. I suppose I would rather the latter be done to me than the former, but it is still the same idea with a different set of weapons. In some cases, church discipline may even be used as a form of lawfare to pressure or silence a whistleblower. To say that this can never “(never? No never!”) happen in the LCMS is to deny original sin."