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No, this is vindictive: http://freespire.com/. That's a site set up by a former exec of a defunct company, attacking its former CEO. shawnee_'s comment is exploding with tact by comparison, and any HR drone who doesn't see the difference doesn't deserve their position.



Yes, you can find more vindictive things: there are people out there who have not only set up a silly website, but have made it their life's mission to stalk and terrorize the people they dislike; there are even people who have captured and tortured the objects of their hatred/revenge. Obviously, this is a massively different situation than simply calling someone names, and anyone who fails to recognize that fact is being dense: these websites and comments are, after all, "harmless name calling".

However, that really doesn't excuse the behavior: just because you can find someone worse than you, making you look good in comparison, doesn't mean that you are actually doing well... "have you seen Steve? he failed that class; in comparison, my C is great! if you really can't see the difference, you don't deserve to be a teacher" <- this statement isn't even false, as a C really is massively different than an F... at least you tried... but is it really something we should be happy about? Seriously?


At the end of the day, calling an asshole an asshole is not something to apologize for.


I am not certain whether I agree with that; I might, actually... I certainly would if it were in private, or in context. However, that doesn't make the argument "if you think X is Y then you should check out Z: it is so much more Y you will stop calling X Y by comparison" a useful argument: you can almost always find more and more extreme examples, and eventually you are saying "at least he's not Hitler; you can tell the difference, right?".




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