Mr. Robinson:
I do not believe Gheen has declared "War" on you or Free Republic. His forum posts at his site IMO depict this conflict as an "unfortunate" event "necessitated" by your actions which he and many others perceive as a manipulation of the debate on immigration at Free Republic. I hope that things are not at that level.
Once again, Free Republic will continue to have new members that do not know the history or background that you do on some authors and groups. Without a defined and accessible list of prohibited sites, groups, and authors, you will continue to have to pull threads from well intentioned users. Pulling these threads, assuming those that post them are "storm front infiltrators" and banning accounts without explanation will probably lead to more tensions in the future.
Considering the rising interest in this issue, I constructively encourage you to take the young Turks and hot bloods with a paternal grain of salt. There is a rising anger in this nation over the illegal immigration problem and many of the people that come here will not be the extremists you have dealt with in the past although they may be very passionate in their views. Besides, would Free Republic be all that interesting without a few good knock down drag out debates from time to time?
It's a shame that some people are so into anti-immigration issues that they willfully fall in with stormfront and other white nationalist type groups. This will only make it that much more difficult in the long run to pass a political solution regarding illegal immigration.
Same can be said for the rampant Bush haters that fall for every tinfoil hat anti-America propaganda piece that comes down the pike. And when you combine the two, wow, what a mess. VDARE, Rense, Woolridge, Sam Francis, Etherzone, infowars, whatreallyhappened, antiwar, NewsWithViews, LibertyPost, LibertyForum, stormfront, libertylobby etc, etc, all prime examples.
JimRob has had a policy since Day One that no racism is allowed at FR. I am vehmently opposed to illegal immigration and think Bush is crazy on many levels for pursuing his immigration agenda. However, having said that, I have followed the debate closely enough to realize that some individuals who are against illegal immigration are doing so for racial reasons as much as for legal or economic reasons - and those individuals, when they state such an opinion, have been show the door for some time, along with those who keep posting material from sites deemed unsuitable for FR under the same guidelines. And for every responsible border group like American Patrol, there are over-the-top nutbars like Ranch Rescue who discredit the anti-illegal movement.
I still see a very robust debate on FR over immigration - but it will stay within the boundaries that have always been here. It's a big, bad, internet out there, and those who find JimRob's rules too restrictive are free to go and set up their own websites with their own rules and say whatever viewpoint they want. But for some reason they demand the right to post those views here - could it be because of the forum's visibility? Of course, one reason the forum is successful is because of JimRob's rules, not despite them - but I don't expect the critics to ever acknowledge that.