Free speech exists, yes, but you seem to forget a few vital points in that statement. This isn't a specific country. Everyone from over the world can enter this forum, so free speech is something that is both a gift and a curse. While NB allows you to get in touch with people from other cultures, it doesn't mean you can say whatever you want and get away with it. Same thing how there's free speech in Germany, but you can go to jail for saying the holocaust and such events never happened. So please, don't use "free speech" as an excuse. Free speech is only there if you don't abuse it. Abusing it gets punished. Simple as that really.
You are right that we're only humans as well, but I give me an example where a mod is a prick to someone without being harassed/bugged/having had endless problems with a member before acting that way. Even then, I doubt mods are pricks to people. And going over to the fact you state that some of us are ignorant and abuse our power to mess people? Seriously, these kind of statements don't anger me, but I feel pity that you need to make them just to serve your (unfair and wrong) point. Give me 1 good example where abuse of power happened.
Honestly, what do we gain from abusing our powers against members? This is a voluntary work job. We give time, effort, and countless of things to do this and get close to nothing in return. Most of the time people even only just complain and insult us because we are the so called ignorant and biased ones while half of the people who call us that, just call us that because of an infraction they received which seemed unfair.Do you honestly think we'd abuse our power, and do you honestly believe yourself when you didn't even give a clear point but just spatted it out like that? I doubt it. All you're acting like now is someone who's frustrated because you can't agree with something that happened in the past between you and a mod. I know you're not saying every mod is like this, but by calling out "no mod in particular" you might as well call all of us out.
I'm just saying, it's so easy to diss on mods when you have no idea what we do simply because you can't agree with everything we do, which is I hope a nice addition to what the thread maker meant.