Back in 2006 I paid $5 for the privilege of leaving comments at Metafilter. At least three of the handful of comments I've left there have been deleted not because there was anything wrong with the comments but because they disagreed with the pro-Big Business immigration stance at Metafilter.

The latest comment that was deleted was on the post "The Lives that are US Immigration Talking Points" by user @zabuni (who informs me that users can't deleted comments, only moderators).

In response to my request for comment, Matt Haughey (owner of Metafilter) explains why he deleted my comment:

"It was deleted because it was inflammatory, it was the very first comment (and sets the tone for the thread), and you ended it with a link to your own site without disclosing it was your site."

First, my username at Metafilter is LonewackoDotCom, because that's the old URL(click to show the rest) of this site (I changed URLs in 2008). Anyone who takes the simple step of converting "LonewackoDotCom" into lonewacko.com and plugs that into their browser will realize that the user LonewackoDotCom is associated with this site. I might try to change the name I use at Metafilter, except the time it would take wouldn't be worth it for something I might use once a year.

The rest of Haughey's pretexts are similarly bogus. My comment is (in my opinion) hardly inflammatory, but others with sensitive dispositions and a tendency towards trying to stifle those who disagree might think different. If I'd left my comment in the most gentle, milquetoast terms possible and had left it at the end of the thread, Haughey would invent some other excuse. The simple fact of the matter is that Haughey has no respect for open debate: he wants to mold the debate to his liking and is outraged that anyone would disagree with his point of view.

Here's the comment (the "here" below was an HTML link):

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If you "help" as described above, you'll just make things worse for both the U.S. and Central America.

"Helping" as described above will encourage more kids to try to cross the desert, and some of them will die along the way.

If you want to actually help, take steps to encourage kids to stay in Central America and make it easier for reforms to take place there.

More on that here [note: link to http://24ahead.com/n/12058 ]
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If anyone disagrees with that, debate me. Unlike Haughey I fully support open debate and don't need to try to silence those who disagree with me.