[quote name='jmcc']Let's not get into sharpness when you're claiming a political ideology is a race. The Republican analogy is apt and your contention that RegalSin exhibited racism is faulty. If you want to justify his ban in some other direction, feel free.[/QUOTE]
Find me a non-Jewish Zionist and we'll talk. The Republican analogy is dreadful because most of the people on these forums are white males, so the comparison can't be made when you're talking about a group who can be both politically and racially isolated as an "other," as compared to one in which both the prepetrators and recipients of the argument are white males. It is coincidence (or patriarchy) that most Republicans in power (or politicians in general) are white males; when both sides of an argument are of the same general type, there's no "racism" to be had. On the contrary, it is much harder to discern if those "anti-Zionists" are opposed to their political ideology, their ethnic composition, or a mixture of both. There is a sect of Jews who demand the annulment of the state of Israel, and are thus anti-Zionists; they are the severe exception, rather than the rule, in the region. Moreover, their recent participation at the Iran-sponsored Holocaust Conference suggests their extreme ideology (in a relative sense). I do hope that the notion of Jews and Iranian Arabs collaborating at a conference together strikes you as odd; because it is, which only serves to reinforce my point.
And, for the record, don't put words in my mouth by suggesting I think it's perfectly fine and dandy that people drop the "n-word" because it's the hip and trendy thing to do. I think nothing of the sort, and I find it appalling. Just because I would support the contextualization of the reason for banning someone for racist language (saying "boy, I really hate n-bombs" instead of the more hip and colloquial "n-bomb please" in the OTT), doesn't mean I applaud either of them. Forgive me for preferring nuances when deciding to ban someone or not, rather than trying to attempt some bullshit approach at "consistency" (which is, ironically, consistent by virtue of ignoring what each poster is trying to say - and thus inconsistent). Neither of us are mods, anyway, so it is truly moot.
In the end, this argument ultimately does nothing to support your demand for "hard and fast rules" to abide by for posters. This discussion shows just how useless and/or impossible those rules are to develop. I know you're the kind of poster who wants nobody to be banned and to enforce the "ignore" rule. I appreciate those bans, however, because I don't want this place to be GameFaqs. If you want that kind of environment, I can provide you with the URL. In the meantime, I will appreciate a forum that sometimes eliminates obnoxiousness, trolling, and racism.