Let me make it really clear, we won't be amending or scrapping the moderation permission in the journals forum. They've been that way for as long as I can remember, and they'll stay that way for the foreseeable future. The whole idea when we set up the journals this way was to allow a member to own a thread, and have the ability to curate it as they saw fit. In a similar way as anyone with a blog has ownership of their posts and can determine whether others may comment. This is a single forum on the site, we're not about to roll it out to any other forums. We explicitly show a notice at the top of every thread in the forum, that says "This forum allows members to create restricted threads. Thread starters can choose to allow replies from members on their contact list, or disallow replies from members on their ignore list.". So it's clear to new and old members alike how it works. All posted still must abide by the site guidelines and if for any reason you suspect a journal is breaking the rules, every member still has the ability to report it.
If you object to a journal and feel compelled to comment, I'm sorry but you can't, that's the nature of the journals, I suggest, as dbpheonix pointed out, you use the ignore feature to remove it from your view.
Given that this topic isn't up for debate, this thread is now closed.