[bmelton]

Many people do lots of foolish things, but that doesn't justify doing foolish things. Making snap judgements about people based on irrelevant criteria has been a failing point of humanity since well before you and I were born; thankfully, we've come a long way in civil liberties and in making progress on abolishing slavery, women's suffrage, gay rights, etc. The problem there was clearly more widespread than here, but the symptom is the same -- humans aren't very good at being open minded.

Yes, I understand that it's a fault in humanity, that people's decision-making skills are compromised by completely irrelevant factors. I'm sure I'm just as guilty of it as anybody else.

The point, for what it's worth, wasn't to call the parent foolish, but to point out that disregarding a good idea because the messenger isn't your favorite is, plainly put, silly. As individuals, we should be mindful of the needlessly silly things that we do, and try to be better than that.

[jfoster]

I get the feeling that you might be talking about Stallman's appearance, whereas I am talking about his behaviour. I think more people can see past appearance than can see past unsociable/rude behaviour. Pedantically insisting that people call Linux "GNU/Linux" for example. If you were running a business, you wouldn't do that to your customers, right?