Sascha Noyes wrote in part:
Geoff Burling wrote:
I think you are making a logical fallicy here. You assume that because MNH calls himself a Nazi, therefore he wants to kill RK. As I argued, one can describe oneself -- or another person -- a Nazi for many reasons. In my last email, I suggested it was in response to RK's habit of calling anyone he disagrees with "a Nazi";
Your criticisms of my interpretation of his statement are all valid. However, what you have failed to dispel (in my mind), is the possibility that it was meant as a threat. Implicit threats function not by being overt threats, but rather by having the property that they can be interpreted as a threat. I concede that one has to also employ a measure of likelihood. Your suggestion that this statement was meant as an attack on RK for calling others Nazis has in my mind lowered the possibility that it was meant as a threat. But I am still of the opinion that it is a possibility.
Sure, it's a possibility. But if you want MNH to be banned on this basis (in part on this basis I mean, since you charge further reasons), then the burden lies with you to convince /us/ (or Jimbo, or the arbitrator) that it really was a threat.
I know that if I saw A say to B «I am a Z.» in the course of a fight, and B has a habit of calling people Zs, then I would assume that B had called A a Z earlier in the course of the fight, and that now A was being sarcastic in a bitter response. I would /not/ assume that A really intended to claim to be a Z. Now, this does not excuse A's outburst, but it puts considerable doubt on any claim that A was /threatening/ B, even though a Z is a threat to B.
I don't know if RK ever called MNH a Nazi before that comment appeared, but I'd at least have to establish that he hadn't done so if I wanted to argue that MNH intended to threaten RK.
So I would drop the threat charge for now and stick to this:
My case is founded first and foremost on his personal attacks.
-- Toby