bel says, K, if you are troubled or disagree with a comment made by Cap or Byb ... isn't it better to debate the point than to tell them to keep their mouth under control? (emph. added)

bel, please note that I used no such phrase. Nor did support Avy's use of that phrase: quite the contrary, I took care to indicate calmly that IMHO, Avy's words were excessive.(I said, "I hope I would have [written] with more restraint" than Avy did.)

but I also asserted, with specific support, that it was excessive and unfair overkill to charge Avy with acting "for no reason at all". Others had (doubtless without intent) made provocative remarks: the image of his country's honored hero being impaled.
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To illustrate with a humorous story, which unfortunately is probably apocryphal:
At a state dinner held in the French court a few years after the American Revolution, the British ambassador rose and offered his toast to those former British colonies. Said he, "To George Washington, dead or alive." Thereupon Benjamin Franklin rose and announced his own toast, "To the Crown Prince, drunk or sober." "Sir," said the Brit angrily, "that is an insult!" "No insult, sir," said Franklin, "merely a reply to one."
Avy, unlike Franklin, was IMHO excessive. But like Franklin, he cannot be adjudged without considering the words to which he was replying.