I agree completely. I've said many times that I will defend someone's
right to speak no matter how obnoxious they are. Unfortunately,
there are a couple of people who cross the line from typing into
doing something illegal and potentially damaging. Those people typically
self-destruct on their own, but occasionally other people find it necessary
to slap them down.

The typical scenario is that they post over and over again how great they
are, how much they own, or lie so badly that someone finally calls them
on it. Then, they resort to name calling. When that doesn't work, one or
two go beyond the NG into the realm of malicious intent. IMHO, that's
the line in the sand, and that behavior certainly isn't protected.

I'm willing to bet that you're going to see a lot of vitriol because of this
post. If so, this was a great troll, and I'm happy to have contributed to
it.

"Navvie" wrote in message
...
I think it's a pretty cowardly thing to complain to a provider to shut
someone up. I would never do it. As for selecting posts out of context!
Now, I though I was generally quite reasonable here and just met like
with like. How could someone be so nasty? I've heard others complain
about this but is that what this NG is really all about -suspension of
free speech and dissent for non-americans?