Stevertigo wrote:
Listen: I will make it simple. When you have an intellectual disagreement with someone, don't descend to racial or ethnic stereotypes or slurs. We don't want bigots here. Is this so outrageous?
This is agreeable. The problem is Robert that - for a great many reasons -its not clear to us that your *not a bigot, Robert. Here, in fact, what your attempting is - as Toby (I think) alluded to - is to provoke Godwin's Law. Youre by far the quickest to call people the name "bigot" - etc... (Which reminds us of another law - "He who smelt it - dealt it.")
Just because someone occasionally uses a streotype or even a slur doesn't make them bigots. What may seem like a slur to one reader may have had a perfectly innocent intent in the hands of the writer. Unless somebody is persistently and clearly showing bad intent he should be given the benefit of the doubt. When someone is too quick to shout "anti-semitism" the first victim of that is often the shouter's credibility.
Further, if someone is unable to clearly express what they mean in English, then what they are writing here is almost useless.
This is wrong - even a broken, unintellegible stub can be transformed. Your wanting to oust people for not writing English well is at the very least, elitist - and smacks of the same kind of bigotry you espouse countering.
At least your tone seems more reasonable. I dont want you to leave - youre a valuable point of view. You simply need to tone down the acrimony. Others have told you this - I'm sure your Mother probably has too - at one point or another. I know mine has.
I tend to cut a lot more slack to non-native speakers. Some very innocent statements in one language can easily have outrageous false friends in another. Ec