Mr. Robinson,
let's just say that I am a person that does not like to see damn fine Americans that care deeply about their country pushed around by a bunch of cats in viking helmets with lasers coming out of their eyes. Zotting is not the answer and is no way to communicate IMHO. In fact it gives the impression of censorship and bias even if that is not your intent.
I appreciate you taking the time to point out that you did not mean to imply that any of the other organizations and individuals you have banned are racists or associated with racists.
Political free speech is our most protected freedom and when people are penalized in any way for exercising that freedom then we should all be concerned. This is your house Mr. Robinson it is your business establishment, but what if AOL or Road Runner decided they would exclude some people from their private property establishments because of their views or creed?
It appears to me that if you had taken the time to speak with your members and show some leadership earlier, the unfortunate nature of this thread could have been avoided. I applaud you for taking more time to explain to everyone why you have made decisions to ban users and a lot of other content.
That being said, it would be best if your participants could freely discuss illegal immigration without being hounded and called racists by others. Such claims are clearly character attacks, unsubstantiated, and are a form of attempted intimidation. A clear list of things to avoid in your terms of service would assist your users and help avoid confusion.
I have one final, yet very important question for you Mr. Robinson and it is a yes or no question. In light of the allegations that have been made, do you or do you not support President Bush's guest worker plan?
Nice try retread.
I think some sort of guest worker program is more realistic than a complete ban on immigration. A general roundup and ship them out program is not going to happen (IMHO).
Those who bring up the issue of illegal immigration as the one and only all-important issue wherein the very survival of the nation is teetering on the balance, yada, yada, etc. have to police their own ranks, unless they don't mind that their one all-important issue gets sullied by the presence of racists, overt or otherwise. Your side does not have the luxury of ignoring or snickering at posts which slam Hispanics and Hispanic culture on a conservative forum.
Bad example. FYI, Aol has discussion forums with volunteer moderators who ban people and delete their posts. On the Baltimore Orioles board, one poster refered to Palmeiro as a spec (derogatory term for hispanic as in "no spek inglish") and he and all his posts got canned.