stopping cheaters

The only way to stop cheaters is to hire people to go over to their house, shack, or cave to beat them up and steal their furniture or dog. I played a postal game over at Gameknot years ago for a month. Lost after like 80 moves. Hard work. Even talked to the guy on chat. A few weeks later he was banned. He wasn't a kid, he was, like 50. I should have been suspicious because he never talked chess. I guess he barely knew the moves. Am i wrong, encouraging violence?

This site is so full of players using computer assistance in openings and tactics it seems as if there is no attempt to govern at all, except for that governance up for sale to the highest bidder.

Actually, you are close to being right. You pay vigilantes who maintain artificially low ratings to punish honest players who beat you fairly. Common on this site are such punishment profiles, many with adolescent bad ass names.

Did you know that when you are in time trouble the site managers will cheat for you by creating a Buckle you seat belts for maintenance message a cheat you out of time?

This sounds like paranoia to me. I've basically never suspected an opponent of cheating. Besides, a computer cheater ought to be playing at the highest levels, shouldn't they? Not sub-2000...

That being said, I do play 3+0 and 1+0 time controls almost exclusively, so maybe that's too fast to operate an engine manually at least.

I don't really understand the point of cheating in chess... If I am not good enough to beat my opponent, then what kind of satisfaction can I draw from letting a machine win for me instead. I don't get this at all.

You are right on the second point. But on the first point you are completely missing the concept of punishment by intentionally low ratings.

I have made peace with the fact that online my opponents will sometimes cheat, therefore I use internet chess to help me improve and then focus on my OTB events

All you can do is feel sorry for the poor fool that cheats He/She/it probably thinks they are getting something.
If it helps you improve (which cheating can not) your OTB will get better that is what matter.