Deltoid

Someone writes:

TO List Supervisor, Prof. Volokh: Mendacious, Fabrication, Falsity, Untrue. These words used by Mr. Lambert to describe Mr. Kates's arguments. Is it permissible to call a list member a liar if you use a thesaurus?

No. The only people you are allowed to call liars are those not in a position to defend themselves (that is, those people who are not list members).

I was unaware of this list rule. It seems to me that anyway you say them, these words still mean liar,

No. "mendacious" and "fabrication" are the only ones that imply deceit. I only used the word "mendacious" in a hypothetical statement that mirrored one made by Mr Kates. My intent was to argue that these statements were just as incorrect as those made by Mr Kates. The form of the argument was this:

Kates: Schetky is a liar because she did X.
Lambert: But you did X, too. Would it be correct to state "Kates is liar because he did X."? Surely not.

I suggested that the word "fabrication" might be the best description of Mr Kates' claim that handguns were involved in less than half of criminal firearm injuries. This was because he admitted that the claim was without foundation. Normally I would just state the facts and let the reader decide for themselves the best description of Mr Kates' claim. However, since he insisted on what I consider an incorrect usage of the word, I thought it best to counter with an example of correct usage. I apologize for any distress this has caused list members.

which, Mr. Kates is not.

I do not believe that any of Kates, Schetky, Smith, Falk and Sloan are liars. I believe that all of these people were presenting what they honestly believed to be true. Just because they may have been mistaken in some of their beliefs it does not follow that they were lying. I did not accuse any of these people of lying. I apologize to any list members if my writing was unclear and they were inadvertently given the impression that I was suggesting Mr Kates was lying