Got a warning for accusing a poster of lying. Before you go, “Of course you did. That’s against the rules.” Please look here.
OK you didn’t click? Here it is. In a thread on politician lying I pointed out that Harry Ried lied and no one cared. Happy Fun Ball comes along and says he agrees and then follows up with commenting that he looked at my post history and that I support the following positions
*Benghazi was a crime
*Hillary Clinton should be imprisoned for the email server fiasco
*I’m a Trump supporter
Thing is, based on my posting history the first two are objectively false and the third is subjective and although I support some of Trump policies I don’t blindly support everything he does*. But this is a thread on lying and how no one cares right? I mean Happy Fun Ball agreed with me that no one cares. Maybe (I think) he deliberately did that for irony. You must admit that his post makes a huge shift in the second paragraph and transitioned with “Or maybe I should say nobody cares unless it is their ox being gored. For instance,”
So I took that as deliberately making up lies to illustrate his point. Why didn’t I report it?** Because I felt it was an example appropriately in a thread about lying just like my response of Hey you’re lying was appropriate as a bit between HFB and me to show that people don’t care.
And to top it off, Bone gives me a warning for accusing HFB of lying but of course no comment made to HFB. I disagree with the warning and ask that it be recinded based on the context of the thread, how HFB wrote his post and me being explicit saying “Are you trying to be ironic lying about my positions because …” in my reply.
BUT that raises a point. Suppose a poster says things that a objectively and provably untrue. Suppose I say in a thread that poster X has written many times that he thinks raping unconcious women is OK since they can’t say no. That is a lie but if poster X says, “That’s a lie.” He is warned. Am I ever warned? Should poster X report it? If so will the mods make it clear my post was a lie? Is it even possible for poster X to rebut what I said without explicitly calling me a liar? And if so, how is it fair that I can toss out these thread bombs of lies left and right and other posters need to tiptoe around them lest they get modded? Why must the rebuttal be softer than the accusation.
So what is the SD rules and policies when a poster says thing that are objectively untrue about another poster and how can the other side respond?
*Although sometimes I think that on the SDMB that not believing everything Trump does is evil makes you a Trump supporter.
** FTR I did report it after my warning because if I get a warning for saying “You’re lying.” then the liar should as well. But honestly I feel neither one of us should get any modding BUT I feel more strongly that there should not be a double-standard.