I disagree, mainly because this (the bolder part) makes no sense considering you already said you consider the terms analogous. You're now saying something different - that the phrasing used isn't the same as calling someone racist.
I'm not sure what you mean here. I don't consider those statements to be analogous. That was what my initial point was - if you believe you can show the latter, why would you go one step removed and only say the latter? The implication being that I don't think you can really show the latter if you're only willing to say the former. I don't think I'm saying anything different.
Calling someone a racist isn't direct evidence of anything.
No of course it isn't evidence itself. My point is, if you're certain enough to apply that label then you should really have some evidence to show, so show it. If you're only going to say "you share some characteristics with racists" (have two legs, breathe oxygen, etc) rather than "you have expressed racist ideas" (hate blacks, etc), it implies you don't have evidence. If you can say the latter, then show the evidence.
Illustrating how someone is using racist arguments - intentionally or otherwise - both serves as a refutation (in that folks don't typically want to be making racist arguments. I'm assuming? Hoping, really), and also as a warning to other readers that there could be something bad faith here.
Again not quite sure what you mean here, but the initial part (showing how someone is using racist arguments) is exactly the sort of evidence I'm talking about. If you can show that the arguments
themselves are racist. But that's not what was said. Perhaps I misinterpreted the initial comment, but I took "your views are indistinguishable from a racists" to be a variant of the "fellow traveller" thing. If the views themselves are racist then you would just say as much wouldn't you? You wouldn't need to point out that racists believe these things too.
I mean, if you want to call BCheek a racist, and that's a fair part of this discussion, feel free (I'm not telling you to break any rules, nor do I recommend that). It just seems you're more interested in poking holes on Cloud's argument, which to me is missing the point.
Without wishing to cause offence, I don't think I've even noticed him until this thread, so I have no idea if he is or not, so I'm not particularly inclined to do so. I don't really see how "missing the point" even comes into it, when I'm making my own point about what I think the choice of wording actually implies. But perhaps I'm reading more into it than is there.
One last point on "it being harder to refute". A common defense from racists who don't want to be called on their behaviour is to object to being called such. If you frame it according to the actual arguments being made, you make the debate about the argument (as it should be, ideally).
Well exactly. I feel like we're just talking past each other here, possibly based on a misunderstanding of what I initially meant if you think that I am now saying something different.
Edit that obviously flouts rules, but probably needs saying anyway - I hadn't read the text in question before posting the above, but I don't think this is bickering really. If anything I think it's a good example of exactly the sort of fair disagreement or discussion that this thread is actually about (if, indeed, it's about anything).
(not meant as patronising, just genuinely joking around).
