HP, but the post some people are clutching pearls over didn't warrant a ban.
The underlined part is a bottom line for me.
His last interaction with me was one where he actually showed a smidgen of non-arrogant humanity, which suggests that he's a person who really has trouble not viewing his arguments as personal here. Unlike Badger (whom 5 of his last 10 posts at this writing are personal attacks), he makes an effort to control that aspect of his persona. He's hit me hard (verbally) at times, but I've given it back on occasion.
Comparing GMac to Badger is a useful exercise. GMac has nowhere near the number of posts whose content is pure personal attacks that Badger's have. And it's Badger that gets personal; the other poster is usually responding to his ad hominem attacks.
That's the big flaw of Atlas Moderation today; they will infract posts that, essentially, oppose the "favored" side of an issue over the "disfavored" side of an issue (regardless of who's right and wrong) and issue sanctions, but posters like Badger, whose primary purpose is to personally attack posters, are rewarded when the targets are "disfavored" targets. (The number of issues that have a race/gender/ethnic aspect to them is at a high point in an era of Identity Politics, worldwide.) If I took the posture here of personally attacking as my primary raison d'etaire, I'd have had a permaban by now. We've sanctioned GMac, but we allow a poster (Badger), who's primary function is to call people names here that are often false and libelous. No one in the Mod Cave really has the moral authority to call anyone out on being any of the "bad person" label as long as Badger is allowed to remain unchallenged in his present self-defined role.