If my neighbors want one of those rags who am I to stop them from displaying an ugly symbol of hate? I would rather know what I am dealing with.

PS
It is very unlikely any of my neighbors would do this my block is mostly POC Hispanic.

And we can call them out for their stupidity.

And ban the ones going over the line.

It's really quite a small percentage of Southerners who display the characteristics everyone loves to hate but all of us who live here get painted with it to some extent. South-bashing has been going on here ever since I joined DU, people act as if there are no liberals living in the South at all.

I managed to shame a poster into taking "trailer-trash" out of the title of an OP yesterday, they replaced it with "white-trash".

Bigotry shows up in all kinds of places and there's plenty of it right here on DU, hell even Bernie Sanders gets called a racist on DU.

consider that an improvement. Outside of identifying trash as white leaves the implication the rest are trash that whites have to be specialized is generally a derogatory insult of rural or low-income white Americans so the terms are different -- the use and meanings are the same.

Bernie Sanders being called a racist doesn't necessarily make it so or what is it you meant in context of bigotry showing up? The claims of racism didn't match with his rhetoric or his record.

I Arizona bash and I live in Arizona but on any level generalizations should be avoided because they tend to be offensive but not only that are incorrect. Certainly politicians, environment, support, etc should be criticized which I do in Arizona with the Sheriff Joe & Jan Brewer stuff who built their careers on exploiting the fear and prejudices of the population. I never been to the South and I imagine in many ways, and many parts they are much further on these issues but here -- particularly in most parts of Maricopa County Snottsdale, Mesa -- especially East Mesa & Apache Junction, Paradise Valley -- pretty much only South Central Phoenix & ASU are the liberal strongholds. Back in the SB 1070 and the whole Brewer telling the Obama administration what federal laws she isn't going to abide by invites a lot of Arizona bashing and I don't offended by it even with the let them succeed talk as I treat it as more "if the shoe fits" kind of situation. White or trailer trash labels are a different story, however.

People want to make themselves into martyrs when they are not.

If something is ridiculous, challenge it & debunk it. I find the odd conspiracy theory bans to be odd as I would like to see a list of what is considered "creative speculation" & what isn't and what the reasons are why. I've seen a Gaddafi Airliner thread quickly locked and told to go over there. I see nothing implicating him except for him saying he is responsible so the sanctions or ban is lifted and sell him weapons. Reagan bombed the shit of his boats, then the airliner crash happened, then Reagan accused him of the act saying he did it because he bombed the shit out of him. Its ridiculous when the effort to implicate whoever is inconvenient strikes me as the more far-fetched conspiracy. A little venting but saying the moon landing was faked it is pretty easy to address the claims. Relegating stuff like that is something that doesn't make sense because there is ridiculous stuff that is posted everyday like the "not good enough Bernie" threads or the ones implying sexism on his part because he indicated he favored Scandinavian style Democratic Socialism.

I think I'm probably misunderstanding the suggestion or question as to what it is when it comes to the discussion of what with the revoking of posting privileges up to the point of racism. People argue for getting rid of the 2nd Amendment or a significant alter of it which I'm saying is as far as laws passed by legislatures signed by executives etc I favor discussion of rather than a ban or but outside of the question that is in-effect what you're doing. Just answering the question.

I think some people on this board get a bit too happy about banning people. I have several people on ignore, and that's good enough for me. Just because I don't want to waste my time reading their comments doesn't mean they should be banned. Some people might enjoy reading drivel. It doesn't matter to me, and I wouldn't gain anything if they were banned.

Unless something is really nasty or over-the-top, we shouldn't just ban people for speaking their minds. If someone is a disruptor, they'll eventually found out, usually soon. Maybe we need the meta forum back. Let the fighters have a place to fight.