Please realize that you could have started your own thread after I deleted the off-topic posts. I even stated in my post that you could find another thread to discuss your whining in. I guess you did, but you sure changed the subject.

If you had started another thread, and then I (or another mod) deleted those posts as well, then that would be censoring. What occurred in that thread was nothing more than a thread cleanup.

For the record, I used the term "whining" to mean "political discussion." Nothing more than that.

I haven't said anything about this until now, but I feel emboldened by this thread. Why do the mods keep changing all of my posts to make them really suck?

There are going to be lots of self-righteous and over emotional posts over the next week. I will be one of the posters of them. That said, I think you have all of us beat.

Be a decent person and understand the goals of that thread. You actively chose to change it. I don't know about you, but I don't think asking you to start your own ****ing thread is a huge limitation on your expression.

Again, you can run a messageboard how you choose, as a forum for everyone to impose themselves on others. There are lots of those forums out there, I choose to not participate in them. This is run with some level of community responsibility.

Be prepared to run a forum full of insults/personal attacks, immature posts, unnecessary foul language, thread crapping, etc.

I've seen unmoderated (or poorly moderated) forums. Be glad that this isn't one of them.

It always amuses me when people say, "Hey, this is America! I can do whatever I want!"

The right to free speech is pretty direct: you can state your mind on a public street corner, in your home, and in your own private establishment, or publish whatever you want, or start your own club, or whatever, but it is not and was never intended to be some kind of expressed permission to shoot your mouth off whenever you want.

If you work for Best Buy, they will not let you wear your "Legalize Marijuana" button; at church, wearing a shirt that says "Satan Rules" will probably get you escorted to the door. If someone is giving a speech and you heckle them, you can be legally thrown out; and in a private Internet forum such as this, if a moderator deletes or changes one of your posts, that is their duty and right.

The fact that the mods and admins allowed you to have this new thread to complain in tells you that at least there is a sincere effort here to let you speak your mind, but that is by no means a right -- it is a privelege, and it can and will be taken away.

(By the way, don't take any of this as a personal attack. Everyone here is just exchanging thoughts and ideas, and no one is out to get you personally. For an example of what a personal attack looks like, see my next post.)

Tell you what -- as a test, why don't you try posting something that doesn't suck for once so we can see if they change it -- ya friggin maroon.

Another thread by someone confused about the concept of "censorship"?

Oh well. FINALLY someone with a clear view of the "right" to free poop, an equally confused concept.

You have to wonder, though, what the founding fathers believed about the right to free poop. Even hairier is the concept of separation of poop and state, which isn't found anywhere in the text of the Constitution.

The great thing about the internet and free speech is you can always go make your own website and put any rant you want on it, for all the world to see. People who complain about being held down by the man never seem to want to do this.