Yes. And to most folks, flames are a sign of an emotional, partisan person who there is no point in trying to reason with.
FR at its best rises above the rabble. It's a discussion site where we win debates on the merits of the topic, on the points.
To call someone names only chases away folks who might otherwise contribute to the debate.
How do you feel about losing the abortion debate here so badly, and having had it shown to you vividly how brutal and inhumane and animalistic the practice you support really is?
Except with many of the Rudy boosters, there was no debate.
They would make nonsensical claim after nonsensical claim that would be shot down like clay targets. Rudy is really pro-life. Rudy is pro-gun. He's for states rights. He'll point strict constructionists.
And when we got done shooting all those down with sourced links to Rudy's past and present positions, what happened?
Why, the clay targets re-assembled themselves and flung themselves right back into the sky.
Time and time again. It was like Groundhog Day, except with Rudy talking points instead of a fat rodent.
And even that wasn't so bad, except when Fred started making rumbles about entering the race, the Rudy boosters were no longer content to just try and beat down the Reagan legacy to try and make Rudy look better. Now, they started spreading pure nonsense about Fred. Fred's a stalking horse for McCain. Fred's in favor of CFR. Fred's pro-choice.
The last one was, IMO, the final straw in the coffins of the worst of the Rudy boosters. Where the hell do they get off trying to paint Fred as pro-choice from an offhand comment from 1994, when Fred has a 0 NARAL rating and Rudy has a 100 percent rating? The Rudy boosters apparently don't care about Rudy's incredible support of abortion "rights" - but have the nerve to get after someone else's pro-life bona fides?
That's when I realized just how politically depraved so many Rudy boosters had become. They were becoming no better than the Clintonistas they said Rudy would save us from. Rank political hypocrisy was no longer a vice with them, but a virtue. And at that point, IMO, they left the conservative movement. And forfeited their standing to post on FR any longer.