Why are the mods being so inconsistent?

The moderator, Chloe Green61, gave me a justified ban for insulting another user—I won't argue there—but they wiped my post too. Now I’m left wondering why the other guy wasn't hit with the same hammer. It's like his post was just a polite greeting while mine was a crime. Here is what happened:

Dear Andrew Mendoza10,

You have received an infraction on Reddit.

Reason: Insulting others
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This infraction is worth 100 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious infractions will never expire.

Original Post:
http://www.reddit.com/showthread.php?p=34231514
Quote:
Quote:
pirata says: Check out this post
I don't get why you people are risking your lives just to show some love to the same guy for a few hours? You're just causing unnecessary panic and chaos, as if you don't realize that Americans are nothing but mindless, primitive, soul-less cattle. What you're doing is a Sisyphus task.
Now go get lost, seriously.

I suspect if I had swapped "Americans" for Canadians, Jews, or even Martians, I would have been slapped with a permanent ban. Maybe I'm just out of the loop—is it somehow perfectly acceptable to spit on Americans? Is that considered a lesser insult or something?

I mean, have you actually seen that post about Americans floating around somewhere in this thread?

I should also point out—for those who might be missing the nuance—there is a massive distinction between saying "Americans are scum" and just telling someone to "get lost and go to hell."

The controversial post was nuked immediately just to stop people from taking things out of context. We couldn't slap him with the same penalty you got for attacking users personally, because his comment wasn't an ad hominem attack like yours.

Technically, it could have been flagged as hate speech, which carries the heaviest penalty—a permanent ban.

But we didn't go that route since he wasn't saying stuff like "Hey, you Americans are a bunch of bloodsucking trash." Instead, he was basically saying "the PEOPLE are a gullible mob." He actually clarified that himself in his next post, where he admitted he shouldn't lump everyone together with that "anything is better than nothing" mentality—including himself.

Honestly? To me, it doesn't feel like hate speech. It just felt like clumsy, stupid phrasing where he used "Americans" instead of "the nation."

If there had been even a hint of actual hate speech in there, I would’ve banned him on the spot, maybe even permanently.

The only mistake was not issuing a formal sanction sooner, given how chaotic the thread was getting and how fast we had to moderate. But we fixed that! He's been hit with a 70-point deduction plus a verbal warning.
I think that's plenty. If the admins disagree, then sure, go ahead and hit him with a week-long ban for hate speech.