Ad hominem simply means against the person. Calling someone cowardly is ad hominem, no matter what the context. An ad hominem argument is logically flawed but it doesnt mean that ad hominem is restricted to arguments.
Ad hominem means "to the man."
At least, my logic professor told me so. You're the one that's studied Latin.I said "shootinstudent, your perspective is sad. I pity your cowardice.
You're willing to bargain with terrorists. They would bleed you dry."
If you use the term ad hominem in its plainest literal sense, yes, as it addresses shootinstudent directly. I only denied that it was "ad hominem" in the sense of a logical fallacy. There is no place for logic in a simple description of a person.
If you had called SS's argument a cowardly argument, I dont think I'd have much problem. But since you called him cowardly (and how you could know such a thing about him, never having met the man I really dont know), that was ad hominem. And disgraceful.
More disgraceful is trying Clinton-like to excuse yourself from the responsibility of admitting mistake and apologizing.
This sounds like a joke coming from you. You use personal insults as a matter of course. shootinstudent's statements in this thread reek of cowardice. And as I said, I pity him for it.
I will apologize when you and every other member of this forum apologizes for saying that other members are stupid, bigoted, ignorant, sexist, biased, homophobic, unpatriotic, jingoistic, knee-jerk chickenhawks, or a number of other insults. This happens all the time, and I won't be singled out for it. When all of you go back through every post and apologize, I'll do the same.
