He's entitled to his (ignorant) opinions, but he's not entitled to be so pointlessly rude and cruel with his method of expressing it.
If this was a dinner party, I'd quietly ask him to excuse himself, and he'd never be invited again. His choice of language was pointlessly cruel and outrageous.
I suspect he didn't view it as being rude, he viewed it as doing the right thing. He probably truly believes what he is saying, I used to think stuff sort of like that. My guess is he is somewhere between 23-32 years old, that was my stupid range :)
I guess the point is don't assume he's being an asshole, a real asshole would troll harder. I think he believes what he is saying. Yeah, it's rude but I'm not sure I'd be willing to write the guy off.
If all conversations were limited to dinner-party politeness, we'd remain trapped in a state of childlike obliviousness about the real disagreements and difficulties of the world.
(My dinner party would welcome both paul and
thaumasiotes, as people able to speak about a difficult topic calmly, with strong and contrasting perspectives based on real experience. In contrast, yscale would be asked to apologize or leave for content-free name-calling.)
If this was a dinner party, I'd quietly ask him to excuse himself, and he'd never be invited again. His choice of language was pointlessly cruel and outrageous.