Funny Mail

Contains adult language and stupidity

Yes, I had been wondering why my comment at a certain blog had not been published. The answer's in the mailbox. I reproduce the anonymized mail in full (emphases mine):

Hi, LemmusLemmus.

Your [blog name] comment, quoted below, has been rejected for publication on [blog name].

It would be stylistically a little more elegant if she used the blog name once in that sentence, but never mind.

The youtube video you have tried to embed uses inappropriate language, including the word "fucking."

I didn't try to embed it, I tried to link to it. I've checked the video. It does use that word. Repeatedly. If that kind of thing is against your policy, you should be a little more explicit about it in your comments policy. Just saying that comments should be "brief, polite, and to the point" may be a little too unspecific.

Your comment also uses the word "faggot" in reference to gays or homosexuals.

That's because I couldn't make my mind up. Does it refer to gays or homosexuals?

It is not sufficient for you to suggest that your being allowed to use this word is okay when other people's uses of this word are not.

I think what she means by that last sentences is the following: In my comment I criticized people for thinking of gay people as "faggots" (although that wasn't the main point). And I think she's saying that it's not o.k. for me to use that word even if I use it to criticize its use by others. Or maybe especially because I criticize others for using it. What do native speakers think? I'd really like to hear from you about this one.

Your comment has nothing to do with the [blog name] thread, "[post name]." That thread is about taxation and efficiency.

Here things are starting to get weird. That post does talk about taxation and efficiency, but mainly to make a more general point about moral reasoning - namely, whether you should start from specific cases and develop general principles on that basis or should judge specific cases based on general principles (in which case you are sometimes going to arrive at results which go against common moral intuitions). With which my comment has a lot to do.

And now she goes into full headmaster mode:

LemmusLemmus, I don't know what you were thinking to submit this comment. You have been a valued and longstanding commenter on [blog name]. Your submitting this crude and irrelevant comment makes us distrust your comments generally. Your future comments will now be set to Moderate mode.

Regards,

[name, etc.]

Not just "moderate mode". No, it's "Moderate mode" with a capital "M"!

I think it's o.k. for blogs to have implicit comments policies which do not allow linking to videos that contain the word "fucking", but this is truly bizarre.

And now, because you've all been waiting for it, and to preserve it for future generations, The Scandalous Unpublished Lemmus Comment (which she kindly provided with her mail):

I have no problem with starting from specific cases and genaralizing from there. In fact, I guess that's how most grand theories on morals were constructed. But you'll have to come up with first principles at some point. Otherwise you're down there with Tom, Dick and Harry who oppose gay marriage because . . . well . . . they're faggots!

What was I thinking?