On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:42 PM, Craig Aldinger <gonzogone@gmail.com> wrote:

I may be just a reader of the forum for the vast majority of the posts arriving at my electronic doorstep but, I feel rather mystified..... I thought this is the Kansas City LINUX Users Group.
While I can be massively entertained by the sociological/political/religious meanderings of some folks who post here, my primary interest is in learning as much as I can about, you guessed it, LINUX.

It happens occasionally that we discuss things other than Linux, the *BSDs, other Unices, or even the DOS/Windows lineage. Given the wide variety of political and religious leanings of this group, when we do that, it's almost certain to result in a flamefest.

Especially when people resort to a particular form of ad hominem that seems to be really popular lately:
X: I don't like ____.
Y: ____ is (all/disproportionally) non-white, therefore you're a racist. [The unstated conclusion is that anything a racist likes/agrees with is automatically bad.]

It's getting on my last nerve. In fact, in the spirit of Godwin, I'm going to propound my very own Internet Law. Here's my working version: "Calling someone a 'racist', rather than addressing the truth or falsity of their position, is an implict confession that one is unable to do the latter."