But can we maybe lay off the personal vituperation and save some energy for all the points of the new regime that demand alternate measures of extreme scorn and really deep creativity?
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There's been zero "personal vituperation".
What there has been is little tolerance for anecdotes and impressions (the very sorts of anecdotes and impressions you lament) being presented as established facts.
Dennis Claxton was exactly right to return us to first causes when he wrote: "What started [the thread] was the claim associating this purported correspondence [of blacks with conservative social attitudes, absorbed from southern US culture] with the Prop 8 vote."
No one has called anyone names or hurled any serious insults (oh, suggestions of ideologically induced blindness have been tossed out like confetti, but that's typical and harmless). And while I believe in polite discussion, I also believe in taking a subject by the throat and throttling it without mercy.
In other words...sure, let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment).
.d.