whether actual or feigned, and I think we all know who that is in this thread. Whenever someone disagrees with him, he acts as if it's a personal attack on his person and motives, when it's just a disagreement about facts, logic and politics (except when it's in response to his making things personal, which understandably elicits personal responses). Why does everyone continue to feed it, seeing as how he thrives on it--as do all people with delusions of paranoia?

Although, I suspect that much if not most of it is feigned, a convenient (in his mind) way to redirect from the actual points being debated. I.e. instead of trying to defend weak if not indefensible points, just attack the other person, and better yet, make it seem like they were attacking (as opposed to disagreeing with) you, to make your "counter" attacks seem more justified, when in fact they are the origin of such attacks.

I invite everyone to go back and read the threads here and see how he's the actual originator of the very personal attacks that he accuses others of originating. Whether he truly believes that he was the first to be attacked or is just pretending that he was in order to look justified in his attacks on others, I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that it's a lot of the latter. It's like he is or works for a personal injury lawyer and has that whole feigned injury thing down cold.

Anyway, I tend to absent myself from "debates" and "discussion" that devolve into ad hom backs and forths, except to comment on how stupid and pointless they are.

Although, I'll make this one exception and point out, in reference to his little bit of revisionist history, that during Watergate, impeachment was not "on the table" until it was actually on the table, which was at the conclusion of an extensive hearing and investigation phase, not prior to or even during it. Read Elizabeth Holzman's excellent short book on impeachment and see for yourself. She was a congresswoman who served on the house committee that ultimately drew up articles of impeachment, but only AFTER it held extensive hearings AND a sufficient number of Repubs made the decision to support impeachment.

In fact the Watergate impeachment process proceeded EXACTLY the way that many of us here think that any BushCo impeachment process should proceed, not the way that you think it should proceed, in cart before the horse fashion. If we follow the Watergate model--congressional hearings and investigations, subpoenas, compelled testimony, shoes dropping, consensus and public outrage growing, independant prosecuters, etc.--then we stand the best chance of actually impeaching, or putting Repubs in a politically impossible position so that we win either way. But not if we fail to follow that model and put that cart before that horse.

But what do I know? I'm just part of the mean-spirited ad hoc cabal here that's decided to persecute this poor misunderstood fellow who just wants to make a bunch of self-contradictory, illogical and factually-challenged "points" and then accuse anyone who disagrees with him of attacking him and just being mean. Yeah, I stand accused. Guilty as charged, of course.

Grow up, get some help, learn to respect differing opinions and people who disagree with you, and argue with actual facts and logic, not made-up ones let alone bile and ad hom attacks, and then maybe people won't "gang up" on you in the future.

Personal attacks and name calling are not the same thing as ad hominem arguments.

Not sure what this even means. How can an "argument" be ad hominum? An argument is with a person's points, not with that actual person's being and characteristics, real and imagined. If I call someone names, I am not "arguing" with them, but attacking them. Seems to me that there's a big difference there, and that, in fact, "Personal attacks and name calling" ARE in fact "the same thing as ad hominem" attacks--just not "arguments".

Or perhaps you're just responding to some bit of garbled logic on my part.

I was simply rejecting the notion that ad hom attacks could be considered to be or rise to the level of what could properly be called real arguments. They are "arguments", I suppose, in the negative sense of being non-arguments, or faux arguments. But they are not arguments in any meaningful sense of the word. 1 + 1 = 2 is true no matter who says it, and attacking the person who says it does not in any way change this fact or constitute a legitimate argument against it.

Anyway, whenever the "argument" devolves into ad hom attacks, I tend to lose interest. Unless I or someone I respect or who didn't deserve it is subjected to such attacks, in which case I tend to have a hard time letting it slide. A weakness of mine, I would "argue".