Is this gonna be on the test?

Sure they do. Dissent is what progressives are all about. However, there is a big difference between dissent and trying to tear down the Democratic candidate. The user who got banned wasn't banned for that diary, even if s/he claims s/he was. There diaries still on this site that are harsher towards Obama than the one you post here. There were far better reasons to ban that user, including insults towards other users, misuse of the troll and hide rating system, and a clear pattern of working against the goals of this site.

NOTE: This is not commentary on MyDD but on people in general.

Ok, here's the thing - it's been my impression that the farther you head on either side of the spectrum (or, if you prefer, the grid) the more intolerant you become of dissenting opinions.  Is this universally true?  No, absolutely not.  However, I've been attacked by Democratic friends and Republican friends for beliefs that don't exactly equal their's.  From a philosophical standpoint, "progressives" should allow for dissent, but rhetoric is rhetoric and emotions run high.  People were exceptionally invested their respective candidates, and it does not surprise me in the least that things like this happen.  Pragmatics usually trump philosophy.

It's not progressives against non-progressives, it's fathead know-it-all's against free speech.  But we do have free speech and there are places to blog that encourage dissenting opinions so they can be discussed, chewed on, figured out, wonderer about, questioned and then questioned again, with preliminary decisions that can be changed when there is more sunlight.  

I'd also like Barack to explain just how he agrees with Hillary on 99 percent of the issues, so far I haven't seen it. I don't like his faith based stuff, and I didn't like hearing how he was born again.  WIll he too make decisions based on his own beliefs, without experts and professionals briefing him so he can tell us what he bases his decisions on?  All this tell it like it is, I think that belong to Jesse Jackson, who said, they guy isn't perfect, he mouths off on stuff he knows little about, because he doesn't know the history, doesn't understand the implications of blaming African American father's for the woes of disadvantaged communities.  Does Jesse get the right to free speech?  

He's the only game in town and we're stuck with him - after Denver, not quite yet.  Let him get his act together and bring us along?  

I hope McCain pays you a great deal for that ad. It obviously took a tremendous amount of work, and it far more effective than anything his campaign is capable of creating. In the real world, there is no way Clinton can now win the nomination. Please bring your creativity, passion, and dedication to a progressive revolution to transform America into a truly family-friendly, women-friendly, children-friendly, elder-friendly,  human-being-friendly society that is not the shame of the Western world.

Obama is a pol; Hillary is a pol. They are both extremely intelligent pols. As a librarian, I value education and intelligence, reading and writing. Despite his being a pol who will say anything to get elected, Obama is an excellent writer; McCain can't read a speech on the teleprompter. I was a Hillary supporter, but I am absolutely certain that Obama will be far better for the average struggling Americans than McCain.

I have been watching presidential politics since 1956, when I became enchanted with Jack Kennedy at age 11. By 15, I knew better. JFK and all presidential candidates have clay feet that constantly need to  be held to the progressive fire by nonviolent radicals.

An intelligent candidate is educable; a candidates who should not have gotten out of 8th grade because he doesn't get Social Security is incorrigibly ignorant and can't be educated. The last 8 years have proved that.

Commit to a struggle that can be won.

simply advocates a different sort of censorship - the censorship of criticism. You want to "dissent", but you don't want to be called on it.

You don't want to defend your dissent. You just want to make it without consequence.

Site Admins have a right to decide which conversations they want to host and the tone they are willing to tolerate.

That said, your diary seems a lot less inflammatory today than it did when it was first posted.  When Krugman  commented that the Progressives had lost some of their innocence in this primary battle, he was referring to the sexism.  But our loss of innocence is even deeper than Krugman himself seemed to appreciate.

Obama isn't the person we have been waiting for.  Now just about all Progressives seem to understand that.  Exactly how far Mydd wants to go in exploring this fact and what to do about it is up to Jerome and company.  If they don't want to host that conversation, there are lots of sites that will.

I think dissent is allowed.

However I don't think dissent is valued as much as people say it is. I think this because a disclaimer is often attached which says something along the lines of your dissent must fit within these specific guidelines.

How horrible to pollute that song by using it as the background music for this tripe.

He/she is still free to use his/her voice.  There was no silencing.  The owners of this site have simply chosen not to allow him/her to publish his/her thoughts using this site as a soapbox - as is their right to choose who gets to speak with their voice by publishing on this site.

I find the victim mentality of the PUMA crowd rather ridiculous.  So you're going to be petulant children and take an active stand against women's rights, against ending the war, and against the working class, all because your candidate didn't win the primary - and you don't want to be called on it by those of us who are actually doing things to get Democrats elected?

You want to use this Democratic site to undermine the Democratic nominee for president in an incredibly important election year, where critical decisions hang in the balance including the makeup of the Supreme Court for a generation, and it's "censorship" and "silencing" when they decide that hurting Democrats is not an acceptable use for a Democratic site?

Whatever.

What garbage.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/comm entary/la-oe-hedges11-2008jul11,0,192712 9.story

Read what this NYT terrorism reporter thinks of the Obama-backed FISA bill.

Compared to what? To Talk Radio? To Free Republic?

When I was a regular at dKos (say 2001-2004) I made it a point to regularly visit Hidden Comments Land. And in every single case but one it was clear that was being suppressed was not dissent, and really wasn't even trolldom, no overwhelmingly it was exile for sheer dumbassery,  people who combined rudeness, combativeness and an unlimited capacity for making the same point over and over. Flame wars are not dissent, not after the first exchange.

Well that was a few years ago, things may have changed in the wake of the recent (and apparently ongoing) Obama/Hillary supporter feud, but I think my point remains. Pretty much all of those commenters insisted that their speech was being repressed on the basis of its content when on inspection their comments really didn't have content to begin with.

Too in enough cases you could tell that some of these people simply went out of their way to get banned simply in order to whine to their wingnut friends about censorship by the Great Orange Satan, their real intent was to generate some spurious outrage ala Limbaugh.

It always depends on whether you are disagreeing with them, or their candidate, or what time the sun will rise tomorrow.

It means  you support the Democratic nominee.

What does it mean to be a Democrat?

For starters, not working to get the warmongering, sexist Republican candidate elected President.