Matthew Anderson said:Look, when we're talking about vaccines, you clearly love using statistics as an appeal to authority.
Statistics—unless they've been doctored, of course—are definitely an "appeal to authority" 😁. Still, they’re certainly a more solid argument than anyone’s subjective value judgments.
It feels like a repeat of that situation with the Law, where I suppose someone feels compelled to say something in defense of the opposing side—regardless of how distasteful that "other side" might be based on every other metric. I remember mistymason1 as being a rather obnoxious and arrogant forum user with incredibly rigid views; I’ve had my fair share of heated exchanges with him. He’s the kind of person I wouldn't want to be even in the same congressional district with, let alone grab a coffee with, so... yeah.
But.
Since I can't see deleted posts, I could only look at what he was supposedly "doing" on that thread about the USO; I didn't comb through all fifty pages, but looking over the last ten, I couldn't find any evidence of "behavioral issues." Whenever someone claims a sentence is offensive, one really ought to keep Tyndall's rule in mind, which suggests that even if you
write idiotic things again—meaning, even stating that someone is repeatedly writing nonsense—it isn't necessarily labeling the person themselves as an idiot (and until that rule is overturned, my personal confusion regarding how one is even supposed to identify an idiot if repeated nonsense isn't a reliable sign, remains my own personal problem 😁).
All in all, the guy got singled out because people are bothered by his stances and his refusal to tolerate opposing viewpoints. It's ironic, really, because those very "people" demonstrated the exact same thing—intolerance toward his views. Anyone who is incapable of either crushing his arguments (which are riddled with massive holes) or simply accepting them as his right to hold, should probably donate their computer to the nearest orphanage and spend the rest of their lives offline, rather than whining about being offended and demanding that mistymason1 be silenced.
Last, but not least: a quick search of the unknown would easily turn up instances of very similar—if not identical—behavior and rhetoric, just with the opposite ideological slant; examples of equally intolerant, arrogant, and haphazard advocacy for total sexual liberalism and "liberality." The fact that such views are, dare I say, dominant on this site, nor the fact that those against them (which, in my estimation, includes rational people and a few others—however much they might personally irritate me) are still capable fighters who can wage their own battles without calling for censorship, does not make this disciplinary action any less shameful.
If there were actual examples of direct personal insults (which brings me back to "Tyndall's rule on idiots") or severe violations of the rules that fundamentally change the context (and we haven't seen any such examples here on this Penal Code thread), then the situation would be different—but even then, it's unclear why the whole mess couldn't have been handled with simple warnings or bans.
Otherwise, you can turn yourselves upside down, but this will still look like a vendetta against someone for what he says, rather than how he says it. Those who are silenced and offended (and seemingly incapable of engaging in forum debate) can simply put him on ignore; those who actually know how to handle this can methodically deconstruct every single one of his sentences—isn't that the whole point of a forum? Therefore, these kinds of crackdowns and this nurturing of forum tribalism are utterly pointless.