I have been blocked or muted simply for expressing my opinion by people like kleinbloo (can't remember how his name is spelled). "You disagree so I don't want to see it."

I tend to take a middle of the road approach and admit that if people want to be passive aggressive and block/mute for no reason other than "You've said something I disagree with!" that is certainly their right. To me, I think it reflects poorly on the community as a whole; I understand and respect someone for muting or blocking a person after a confrontation where both parties are at least aware and understand what caused the breakdown of communication, but just being muted out of the blue certainly feels very insulting. I can't even apologize to someone like that when I don't even know what to apologize for. My intention is to never be unkind or dishonest to anyone, so it is a strange feeling to say the least. I've been mostly lurking for a long time here, and the community does tend to be very insular. C'est la vie, it's one of hubski's greatest strengths and weaknesses in my opinion. If you notice, most people don't like talking about #mute since I think the established members want to reserve the right to silently shun the people they don't like.