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Notes -
There is a difference, not just of degree but of kind, between "I refuse to give up a superior position and be equal to my neighbour." and "I refuse to give up an equal position and be inferior to my neighbour."
It is entirely consistent to condemn the former while holding to the latter.
What's really going on though isn't so much a matter of principles. That's my whole point:
I know armchair philosophizing is bad and we really shouldn't try to psychoanalyze people we've never met. But I'd bet that the guy who gets so angry about my comment that he responds with this and then comes back months later, still enraged, is not really motivated by abstract, consistent moral logic. It's pure group identity. He sees someone that says something bad about blacks, he pattern-matches it to slavery (I never even mentioned slavery), he's enraged past the point of reason.
He comes back and dresses it up more but the underlying motivation is clear.
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