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I always read flagged comments, and I vouch for them when I feel they've been unfairly flagged (or when they're from banned accounts that are automatically flagged, but the comment is unobjectionable).

This is however a tacit admission that what you have to say is against the guidelines of this site and that, were you to let it compete in the market place of ideas, it would be fail completely.

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Not all scientific discussion is pleasant to hear, but it would be worth discussing, even if flagged and down voted, rather than "We were always at war with Eurasia".

The fact that an opinion is censored by the means of flagging means that it doesn't have a chance to compete in the "marketplace of ideas".

No, that is the idea being assigned a negative value.

If an idea goes against the guidelines of a website that doesn't mean it has a negative value, especially if users aren't allowed to interact with it at all.

They did interact with it. They flagged it. People generally don't consult the site's guidelines when flagging, but their own set of values.

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