Many words have multiple, often contradictory and historically loaded meanings: “christianity”, “socialism”, “honour”. What’s weird about talking about them?

If somebody was writing about the “evils” of socialism, I would actually have exactly the same complaint about it for exactly the same reason. I would actually fully expect people to have precisely Tim Kaine’s reaction to it, basically to say “Whoa WTF are you talking about, I am socialist, and I’m not evil.” That’s actually a pretty good example to explain what I am trying to clarify with you.

Christianity’s a little different… I think “honor” actually has enough of an agreed-upon definition that you wouldn’t need to get tangled up in the definition of “honor.” That’s actually another instructive example: Two people arguing about whether a third person “has honor” are unlikely to be unintentionally wrangling about “what does honor mean,” and so getting themselves confused about it in the same way that they might be if they’re arguing about “Zionism” or “socialism,” and so it’s more likely to be productive. They might disagree, but they won’t extensively go in circles about it. With these kind of broad and definition-varies-by-the-person definitions, you just have to be really careful with how you apply it and talk about it, especially when huge issues of good and evil are involved, or else you’re going to do material harm to people who are trying to help you, and make it more difficult for them to help you.

So… you’re on board with defining some people as “evil,”

Where the actual fuck did I do that?

When you posted the article about “the ‘evils’ of Zionism” along with “Zionism has proven how evil our society can be” and “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way. This is Zionism.”

Again, he’s not wrong. I get what he’s saying, it is accurate. But you can understand how someone who thinks “Zionist = anyone who thinks Israel should be allowed to exist” could read that and then object to it. Right? Or no? I feel like you’re having a lot of trouble grasping simple points here.

I’ve actually seen people get accused of being Zionists

I already told you: “I personally don’t consider the word “zionist” to be a slur.” I don’t use it as an accusation. So I don’t know what to do with your defensiveness here.

Advanced reading comprehension: Why did I bring this up? I get that you don’t know what to do with it, but what point was I trying to make when bringing up accusations of someone being a Zionist that I’ve seen before? I’ve touched on it and why it is important a few different times.