As in Great Debates, so in Elections. While it may be clear to many that this rule transferred over when Elections split off from Great Debates we have decided to make it explicit.
You may not call another poster a liar.
“You are a Liar” will be treated, henceforth, as a personal insult subject to the normal sanctions of insult in Elections.
Questioning or disputing the accuracy of another poster’s statements–“I don’t think that’s right”, “That’s incorrect”, “You are mistaken”, or even “That’s not true”-- is what debate and discussion is all about. However, questioning the intent of another poster in making an arguably false statement–e.g., “You are a liar”, “You are lying”, “That is a lie”, “That’s not true and you darned well know it isn’t true”–is crossing the line into attacking the other poster rather than attacking the other poster’s arguments, and will be considered a violation of the rules of the forum.
I respectfully question whether the ‘You’re a liar’ rule should ever be applied to politics. People are protected from being sued for lying if the speech is political rhetoric, and not protected when they are besmirching, for example, the reputation of a person in business. “You are a liar, a polecat and a dirty rotten piece of offal” is, in my opinion, protected by the first amendment when the matter is a question of political rhetoric
[QUOTE=crucible;19093206"You are a liar, a polecat and a dirty rotten piece of offal" is, in my opinion, protected by the first amendment when the matter is a question of political rhetoric[/QUOTE]
And the first abendment has anything to do with how a private message board wishes to conduct its discussion because…