An ad hominem attack is an attack on the messenger when the messenger is carrying fact or reasoning that can be evaluated independent of the messenger.

In this case, my criticism is of the person who is providing an opinion and is not reporting any information which can be independently evaluated by us here. The character of this observer therefore does matter.

I did not make those characterizations with the intent of portraying him as a crazy man who should be categorically ignored. All of those characteristics I mentioned are fine things to have in a healthy and diverse body politic. Rather, I mentioned them to point out that we are attempting to divine the truth in an opinion about a portion of society made by someone with demonstrably eccentric opinions about society.

Lastly, thank you for being sensitive about what you saw as name-calling. We could use a lot less name-calling around here.