I completely agree 100% with your assessment of the flagging issue. I will add that with respect to your holding up a golf club in a thunderstorm analogy, I don't think that it's the right way to look at the censorship issue.
Here's what I mean -- why should holding a political opinion be so dangerous? Shouldn't the analogy be carrying an unusually colored golf club, instead of in a thunderstorm? I agree that it's best to stay away from politics altogether, but in a way, that's like saying, "don't have opinions."
If we as a community profess love of free speech, then we can't go around flagging something that we disagree with. Otherwise, we are for controlled speech.
I wish the entire community could have a productive discourse like we are doing without having to penalize each other.
I use the "golf club in a thunderstorn" analogy only to explain attracting a flagging troll, not so much as a general illustration. I agree with you that we should be able to voice our opinions about politics, religion, and other subjects of opinion without getting flagged in the process. The only thing I believe in flagging is actual hate speech and spamming.
I hear ya loud and clear! I also don't flag unless someone is really being a dick. And in such cases, it's a conflict between two parties. I don't get the crusaders that go around looking for reasons to flag...it defeats the whole point of uncensored speech.
Quite true!