>>>Just to be clear. I did not contact anyone, nor call for his banning. I have a very thick skin and do not find it necessary to employ the twit filter.
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>>Sorry for the confusion. I didn't want to imply that you asked for the ban. I was using your case as an exemple of how to deal with offensive messages.
>
>>>Besides, I rather enjoy ad hominem personal attacks in response to my arguments as it signals that the other side is vacant of a rational point of disagreement and must engage in a linguistic assault in order to satisfy some emotional void they've experienced due to my presentation.
>>
>>I don't agree about the lack of rational point of disagreement.
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>To be clear, I don't mean that a rational point of disagreement doesn't exist, but that the attacker doesn't have that knowledge or the ability to present it without emotional insults.
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>>Sometime you conclude that you're so far appart that you're sure that there's no middle ground agreement that could be acheived. Better save some time and be direct ;)
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>Logically, this makes no sense. Consider the case in point, my thread on torture. I'm presenting a case for including new facts regarding an old adage on the subject of torture. At no point did I suggest that I agree or disagree with torture, nor have I stated whether or not I even think that the most extreme cases of EITs are, in fact, torture. Nick decided that the mere bringing up of the idea was reason enough to conclude my motives and/or beliefs and proceeded to launch a personal attack rather than engage the specific argument at hand. Why respond at all?

Despite the choice of his wordings, you could have answered as-if he criticized you with an argument at hand, e.g. by explaining to him explicitly that you still think negatively about torture.