So if there's a slip while I am not online, I should just expect people to lose the ability to distinguish between calling a post racist and calling them racist forever?

I'm not sure what you mean. Look, this would obviously not make the angels sing and the Republican party sign a bill on reparations, but it could help people who have widely different views on race have a slightly better chance of learning something rather than continuing the spiral of hatred.

Why do you disagree with Missile Dog, who thinks this is a distinction without a difference?

Because if that were true, then we wouldn't need the rule to attack the post not the poster.

I can change the rules to add an explicit exception for racism. That's also consistent.

Making an accusation that is directly related to the topic at hand is not a personal attack anyway. Personal opinions and beliefs are the thing under discussion.

Ad hominem refers to personal attacks that are NOT related to the conversation.

edit: ad hominem as a fallacy. Ad hominem itself it not necessarily fallacious.

If it's a distinction without a difference then that applies to everything doesn't it?

Needing to make an exception for racism means there is a difference but racism has a special need.

People haven't spent months bitching about a guy who got called stupid, and prejudice based on intelligence is not a real part of politics

What are you saying? It's okay to call people a idiots if we are talking about intelligence, but otherwise it's off limits? If we happen to be talking about WWII, that's when I get to call them dirty nazis?

I'll ignore the non-engaging part.

If you're saying racism deserves to be made an exception then I agree but if there was actually no difference we could just abolish the rule couldn't we?

If we are talking about an individual's personal intelligence and they are a willing participant to the conversation, then yes. If they are defending the Third Reich or its activities, then yes.

IMO, anyway.

Being an idiot is not as bad as being a racist.

It's pretty clear that the personal intelligence of posters has no real bearing on their politics while their racial biases do. It's easy to see a distinction between the two. The difference up for discussion is calling a post racist vs you are racist.

If a guy named Adolf shows up talking about a Jewish problem, is making sure we don't call him personally racist of the utmost concern?

Well, regardless of the technical definition of ad hominum, the rule to attack the post not the poster means just that, and it's a good rule because arguments should be about ideas, not the people who are discussing them. We may all be stupid ignorant racist ****heads, but that has nothing to do with whether 2+2=5.

If Adolf is talking about a Jewish problem, he will gladly tell you he's racist himself. If you call his posts about his jewish problem racist, and he disagrees they are, I would personally like to understand why he thinks that's not racist. Maybe he'll explain that his problem is with pronunciation of Chanukka, and we can all have a good laugh. I gotta run, hope you make the right call.

So I should take all the people quoted at notracistbut.com at their word that they aren't racist, no matter what they say after declaring that?

I remember when SMPers were all over Bruce about his use of ad hominem attacks when his posts were criticized in Politics. Just like they are always all over spank when he tirades about dickheaded mother****ers who disagree with his views on racism.

Oh wait, those things never happened.

You never really have a problem with personal attacks unless you think they are levied by Politics regulars against what they believe are racist posts.

Probably just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Y'know, I think if you want to get to the root of this it doesn't really have much to do with racism. It primarily seems to be people who have a hard time fitting in socially lashing out at an inappropriate target. The irony there being that lashing out inappropriately is a huge part of the reason why they have a hard time fitting in socially in the first place, but instead of addressing that directly they've just formed a loose coalition around the Lost Cause of Bruce.

I regularly defend GWB when people call him stupid. He's evil and a good actor, but not stupid. The difference is that other people don't go ape**** when I do that.

I agree.

They think they are nerd herd banding together to fight back against the bullying cool kids. They aren't, though. They're just a band of 2+2 posters from another forum making terrible arguments or non-arguments and sulking for months because their balloon popped.

Kind of like when they went on (in ATF or somewhere after the Bruce thing went down) about their intellectualism and commitment to math and science against the anti-science bullies in Politics who couldn't appreciate Bruce's contributions in SMP, presumably because we just hate them intellectual types. Not realizing that many of the folks they were railing against were PhD scientists and engineers who have spent their entire adult lives in math, science, and engineering. But that didn't fit their mental model of being the tribe dedicated to rationalism. Masque spent pages and pages of nothing more than emotional, immature diatribe in favor of his hero, all in the name of rationalism and logical debate... supposedly.

There might be something to this except that it's completely backwards. If someone thinks that hate is wrong in a world where the majority are filled with hate, they're going to have a hard time fitting in.

Bullying by the cool kids? Lol you all are dorks. Its more like dork on dork violence.

That's a fair point but even accepting this line of argument there's still examples that show a difference. For example, someone ignorant might say/repeat something without understanding the part that makes it racist.

Beyond that although I agree the rule is there to stop ad hominems I'm not sure that's it's only purpose. If it's also to do with the effect on the poster, then it's debatable as to whether there's a change in emphasis from the post to the poster that makes a real difference. I'm inclined to think it does but its pretty much impossible to mod so it's a difference that is in practice only up to the person responding to the post.

Nobody hates you, Alex.

This is much more accurate.