"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment...?"
— -- James Madison, "Essay on Monopolies" unpublished until 1946, cited in Brant, Irving, The Bill of Rights, 1965, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
Veiled threats???
Look, if I am going to threaten anyone you will know. I don't veil anything.
While you mention what I say, also mention that I have consistently welcomed YOUR comments and YOUR posts. As to 'Tude, you continue to speak for her which seems awfully pretentious of you. She didn't express any sense of being attacked or rude.
If you feel threatened by someone questioning your authority on a subject, then you are going to find it hard around here. Sorry, but that's life. No one has threatened you at any time here. You come on this blog and immediately start insulting other people and claiming infringement of your "freedom of speech" despite consistently being allowed to post what you want on the front page (which I encouraged you to do from the start) without review and being welcomed to the site.
To me that is ingratitude at a minimum. Not to mention amazingly thin skinned for blogdom.
Feel free to continue to be thin skinned and lack gratitude. It is your right. But I see no reason treat you any gentler than I treat anyone else.
As to who can ban people from this site, I think that pretty much means the editors, of which I am one. As far as I know, no one has ever been banned from this site and only one person from Daily Gotham. And I argued against that banning. And no one has ever been banned by me. All I have ever done along those lines is delete anonymous comments that were advertisements for porn or other things. If people want to advertise let them pay us. Otherwise NO ONE has been banned by me. And I would suggest when you are a newbie to a site that is opening its front page up to you, it really is considered common couteousy to at least familiarize yourself with the site, whose on it and how it works before you throw around accusations of being oppressed.
Sheesh!