Your opinion is welcome, Sedai. I'll attempt to explain my rationale a bit further.
As you've already gathered, this member did have a bit of a history. The first thing I can remember him doing is posting a
thread about the war in Iraq. Right from the start, he stated his political opinions in extreme ways. For example: "I think Bush is a tyranical Idiot" and "Awww sonny is trying to finish what daddy started..how cute...MoroN."
He was not, however, met with a banning, and I'm not even sure that I gave him any kind of warning, either. But he was met with a bit of disagreement, to which he did not respond. Instead, he disappeared for about a year, then came back and
bragged:
"However, I stand today knowing I was right 1 year ago.
Iraq has NO weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was NEVER funding terrorists, and bush will get voted out of office. I can't believe I saw this coming a year ago."
I responded and pointed out that none of the things he said in his first post had been proven right, and that he made no such predictions. To the contrary, a sentence in his original post (
"I mean the U.S says that they are getting rid of Iraq's weapons........of mass destruction. OK. thats fine but what about Israel..they have alot of nuclear bombs.") implies that he, too, though Iraq had WMDs.
But he merely continued to insist that he had been proven right, and when asked what he had been proven right about, he responded with "
Everything." We went back and forth, and at one point he even
denied that the Israeli War of Independence even took place. When confronted with evidence, and a demand (though not an ultimatum) that he start producing evidence to support his claims, he responded only with this:
"You know sometimes I realize that you are a bigger terrorist than Israel itself. You must be jewish."
This, clearly, was beyond the pale. But even then, he was given a chance to retract the statement and go on posting. He refused, and was banned. We talked on AOL Instant Messenger, and he explained that Israel was a sensitive subject for him, so I agreed to give him yet another chance. He assured me he would behave himself.
Then, this thread came along. In and of itself, it's not worthy of a banning...but neither was his thread about Iraq. The two original posts have lots of similiarities, though. They were both clearly written by someone who does not have a disagreement...he has a hatred, and past attempts to extract any sort of reasonable discourse out of him have only resulted in more spite and immaturity.
Cait put it as well as anyone: this post is not about debate, it's about stirring up trouble. I tried to explain this to him last night, using the analogy of abortion: someone is welcome to start a thread called "Why I Am Not Pro-Choice," but if they start a thread called "Why I Am Not a Baby Murderer," I'd have to think twice about allowing it.
There's a certain manner of expressing yourself that is designed to incite trouble and spark anger, rather than discussion. He fails to realize this, and has made numerous accusations that he's being banned simply for "hating a country." In reality, he's being banned for his failure to express his hatred in a civil manner, and his demonstrated inability to control his emotions when anyone dares to dissent.
Whether this convinces you or not, that sums up the reasoning behind my decision to ban him a second time.