  The stability of the black hole horizon is demanded by both cosmic censorship
and the generalized second law of thermodynamics. We test the consistency of
these principles by attempting to exceed the black hole extremality condition
in various process in which a U(1) charge is added to a nearly extreme
Reissner--Nordstr\"om black hole charged with a {\it different\/} type of U(1)
charge. For an infalling spherical charged shell the attempt is foiled by the
self--Coulomb repulsion of the shell. For an infalling classical charge it
fails because the required classical charge radius exceeds the size of the
black hole. For a quantum charge the horizon is saved because in order to avoid
the Landau ghost, the effective coupling constant cannot be large enough to
accomplish the removal.
