Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
Not only is that ad hominem, even if it weren't it wouldn't be relevant to the discussion. What? Am I supposed to choke on those words and feel the creeping fear of being "outed" on a message board? Am I supposed to cry, "Nooooo!" and spin around in my office chair until I vanish in a poof of pixie dust? My career has never been distinguished enough to throw on the betting pile, and it still isn't. You must rate me some eminence that I do not grant myself. That's generous, Gnome, but not at all called for.

Also, since you have to veer so far off course that you're in MY grill now and not discussing the wisdom of tax abatement as civic development policy, I'll presume my points are so rock-solid you had to resort to some new tack. Thanks for the implied compliment, buddy.
THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY FALLACY
One of the most widely misused terms on the Net is "ad hominem". It is most often introduced into a discussion by certain delicate types, delicate of personality and mind, whenever their opponents resort to a bit of sarcasm. As soon as the suspicion of an insult appears, they summon the angels of ad hominem to smite down their foes, before ascending to argument heaven in a blaze of sanctimonious glory. They may not have much up top, but by God, they don't need it when they've got ad hominem on their side. It's the secret weapon that delivers them from any argument unscathed.
In reality, ad hominem is unrelated to sarcasm or personal abuse. Argumentum ad hominem is thelogical fallacy of attempting to undermine a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument. The mere presence of a personal attack does not indicate ad hominem: the attack must be used for the purpose of undermining the argument, or otherwise the logical fallacy isn't there. It is not a logical fallacy to attack someone; the fallacy comes from assuming that a personal attack is also necessarily an attack on that person's arguments.
Therefore, if you can't demonstrate that your opponent is trying to counter your argument by attacking you, you can't demonstrate that he is resorting to ad hominem. If your opponent's sarcasm is not an attempt to counter your argument, but merely an attempt to insult you [[or amuse the bystanders), then it is not part of an ad hominem argument.
Actual instances of argumentum ad hominem are relatively rare. Ironically, the fallacy is most often committed by those who accuse their opponents of ad hominem, since they try to dismiss the opposition not by engaging with their arguments, but by claiming that they resort to personal attacks. Those who are quick to squeal "ad hominem" are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html