If I may, I would like to comment on the rules within the Current Events forum. I think, in order to understand why the rules exist you really need to have been at Celticsblog back when political forums were always allowed and what transpired. It was not pretty. Often the debate got very heated on both sides and broke down into name calling and dashing of one's beliefs and ideals. Nasty is not a good enough word for some of the stuff that went down.
So, Jeff made a decision that I thought at the time was the wrong decision and banned the entire forum. Come to find out after PMing some of the mods, they were spending nearly all their time and effort moderating the political forum only and it was taking up too much time and leading to too much bad blood.
After a while it was clear to see that Celticsblog became a much better place to be around. But Jeff changed his mind. I have no idea why, maybe sites hits were down and he needed more hits to generate ad revenue. Maybe he figured it would keep the diehards around for the slow times. Maybe he just had a change of heart. I don't know. I don't care. But he changed his mind.
But Jeff and the mods learned and wrote up an explicit set of rules to be followed. In their defense, I am sure the mods knew who some of the people who sparked controversy were and who the people who couldn't articulate their opinions without being belligerent, insulting and just plain unreasonable. So my guess is a lot of those guys got quick hooks though I know a lot also stopped frequenting this site.
The reason people got banned had nothing to do with ideology but the manner in which they attempted to articulate their ideas. Yes, there were some very right leaning guys that were banned. But those guys were given short leases I am sure because of what they used to do in the older forums. Some old dogs just can't be taught new tricks.
I will even give an example: iowa plowboy. iowa was as far right leaning as they came and had no problem telling anyone who disagreed with his very conservative views that they were plum idiots. But iowa and I became tight through PMs and that was just the way he expressed himself. He wasn't trying to be insulting, he just came off that way in forums. He is actually a helluva nice guy with a great American family from the midwest.
Others, and I'll give another example, MikeDfromNP, though I can't remember if he partook of the new forums, was a officer in the armed forces and had a very right leaning view as well. But Mike, unlike iowa, wasn't exactly a nice guy. He tried to be insulting and condescending and didn't care who knew it. Boy that guy could debate though.
So as much as those two people had a conservative, right wing, Republican ideology, it wasn't that ideology that got them or would have got them banned. It was their tone and form of communication.
I will admit, at times I call politicians and writers names. I probably shouldn't because it will inflame people and as I have been scolded on PM before, I know better. You see, cordobes, that is something that you have no knowledge of. You do not know how many times a PM is sent out to reprimand someone for saying something.
I have gotten couple of PMs about being a not so nice guy in the past and for being obtuse. The mods were right, I was. But they did it in private and no one ever knew about it. I have been called part of the CB elitist clique here by one or two posters and they probably think I can say whatever I want whenever I want. But I can't and have learned what to say and not say from the PMs I have received because I have been told to what it more than once.
But no one here knows that. I know for a fact that a few other left leaning guys have gotten PMs about discussing certain subjects a certain way. So it is not a right/left thing. It is about the way in which you say things not the things that you say that will get you thrown out of the Current Events forum.