The guidelines are consistent. You should have replied to the argument instead of attacking the other comment. If you had simply posted your sentence "The claim is not that [etc.]" and omitted all the name-calling, your comment would not have been flagged and it would have been more persuasive too. By packing it with insults, you discredit your own point. By the way, that's one of several less-obvious reasons for presuming good faith even when you don't feel like it.
I agree with you that the GP swerved into a strawman at the end and shouldn't have. Indeed they broke the site guidelines there ("Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.") But piling on with grossly worse violations is exactly the wrong thing to do in such a case. If you have a better point, you should serve it properly by keeping your cool. Assuming you're in the right, doing otherwise just discredits the truth, and that actually causes harm.
I agree with you that the GP swerved into a strawman at the end and shouldn't have. Indeed they broke the site guidelines there ("Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.") But piling on with grossly worse violations is exactly the wrong thing to do in such a case. If you have a better point, you should serve it properly by keeping your cool. Assuming you're in the right, doing otherwise just discredits the truth, and that actually causes harm.
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