One thing that has come to my mind since joining this site, is how heavily moderated it is. How posts can get deleted for no reason, threads closed at "moderator's discretion" and how forum rules not only prohibit freedom of speech and to voice one's opinion but they are borderline fascist.

I've never quite understood how a site that seeks the truth and freedom of the individual, can be so heavily moderated and strict in enforcing such rules.

Is there something I don't know? Has their been some form of court order brought against ATS where by in order for the site to remain it must adhere to excessive moderation policies? It just does not make sense to me. I have been posting on forums since roughly late 90's and I have never experienced anything like this site.

So I thought, may be this ATS site is a place to set up for easy monitoring of people who could be considered a threat. Home grown threats, the kind that do have extreme anti-establishment ideological view points that may indicate a potential threat, especially in America where access to firearms is of greater ease. It would also make perfect sense from an operational view point, why have operatives searching high and low when it can just come to this place? Also, by setting it up themselves, they have a greater access to people's information, IP addresses, personal info.

I don't agree with certain users on here all the time, but I certainly would never want them to be prohibited in airing their views. Freedom of speech is the most basic right a Human can have, if I take offence to something being said then that is my problem, not the person that has said what is on his/her mind. To encourage debate is to encourage an objective mind, a wider perspective and to accumalate knowledge, even if we don't agree with what is being said, sometimes we have to admit that if we have no counter argument, may be our view point is wrong.

May be ATS is just one of those places that has strict rules, but to me, you either stand for freedom of speech or you are against it and ATS cannot stand for it with such harsh moderation of posts and threads, which makes me question why ATS wants to be the main hub for what could be seen as predominately the anti-establishment crowd? May be I am way off here, but I hope some of you can see my point of view or at least explain to me what the deal is here.