I realize that censorship is a dirty word, and that it is indeed a slippery slope, but it can be justified. If someone is continuously being abusive, offensive, or whatever other bad "-ive" there may be, what's wrong with quieting them?

I know that the danger in society is that we need some safeguards against whoever makes the decisions upon who or what to censor, but this is only a microcosm of society. We have good people running this place, who like to see it as a good forum to meet and discuss things with friends; they are not corruptible, fat-cat politicians. We won't have any of our civil liberties violated if they decide to censor a few things.

After all, we do have laws against hate propaganda; we have people who decide upon arbitrary levels of censorship (movie ratings board, radio and tv ethics organizations); we have anti-defamation laws. These are all forms of censorship, but it has been decided that they outweigh the evils of not having that censorship in place.

If Max decided to start deleting "offensive" messages from the Mudcat, that would be OK by me. Maybe some of the more boneheaded posts that I've done wouldn't be left hanging around for others to read in the years to come.

I agree with everything you have said, Moonchild. Thanks for saying it.

Paul.