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It is certainly no easy task differentiating between the following three types of events:
1. Posts attacking a TFP member.
2. Posts attacking a TFP member's argument.
3. Posts attacking a group to which another TFP member belongs.
The first category are personal attacks and should rightly be banned, as they are counterproductive to political debate. The second category is core political debate and should never, never be prohibited. The third category is one that I believe should be banned, but the moderators feel should be permitted.
Aside from a general caution about confusing the first two categories, I would just like to say that the third category is bad for discourse as well.
The moderators, presumably, would not allow members to say things like: "It is natural that you would advance an argument of that nature because you are a Jew. Jews live in an altered reality perpetuated by their cultural practices of exclusion and mutual ideological reinforcement. As a result, their comments are worth little more than anthropological value."
What confuses me is that you could probably say: "It is natural that you would advance an argument of that nature because you are a bleeding heart liberal. Liberals live in an altered reality perpetuated by their cultural practices of exclusion and mutual ideological reinforcement. As a result, their comments are worth little more than anthropological value."
I have complained many times in the past about the frustration I feel when moderators see no need to act against this kind of behavior. Insults against group membership can be just as powerful as insults against the individual, but the moderators treat them entirely differently. I believe that fairness would dictate that insults of ideologies and political parties be treated the same way as insults of race, gender, religion, etc.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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