unUSEFULidiot

Only in the strictest sense.

Wrong. You prove yourself wrong below.

If all anybody posts is "you're a goddamn shithead and deserve to die" or similar ad hominem, dragging the discussion down the pyramid of debate, then they will get removed along with their posts.

👆🏼That isn't the strictest sense. The strictest sense would be to remove/censor law breaking content, such as threats of violence and the non-consensual publishing of private information (doxxing)

The raises the question: So what? People have a right to express themselves freely. This includes the right to be rude, vulgar, obscene, and profane.

It is not a rights violation for someone to tell another person to "get fucked." In fact, certain circumstances warrant a response of that nature.

In the ~5 years I spent debating people on reddit, I would regularly run into people who were adamant ideologues. They did not arrive at the beliefs they had via careful reasoning. This being the case, it generally was not possible to get them to change their mind by providing them reasoning as one cannot be reasoned out of a position which they did not initially reason themselves into.

Many a time I would refute the persons position in multiple ways. I might explain to them how it is that certain premises were flawed, how it is that their position is actually subordinate to my dominate more foundational principles, and how it is that the foundational principles can be leveraged to construct a more consistent and understanding of objective reality. At this point I would be met with abjectly retarded cognitive dissonance of one kind or another or outright denial that their position was thoroughly refuted. For situations such as that, the pyramid of debate no longer applies, since I had engaged their argument/position from the very top of the pyramid with the strongest possible refutation. In cases like that, I think it's perfectly permissible to indulge in whatever category of ad-hominem, insults, or flaming suits the situation.

This blanket rule is retarded and needs to go.

This is akin to commenting, "this isn't a free country, I can't throw shit and piss at people on the street."

It is not. See reference to rights violation above.

"This isn't a free country because I can't punch people in the face" would be akin to complaining about censorship because you cannot say "I'm going to run a backhack through your IP and steal your credit card information."

Censorship is acceptable when a rights violation is at play. It is not acceptable when people are simply exchanging harsh words in what is essentially a chat room.