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Contra
From here it looks like you were either purposely trying to deceive people here, or are so stupid and incompetent that you cannot be bothered to spend ten seconds looking at an artist's body of work before trying to write intelligently about the topic. I don't want either of those to be the case so I'd really like to hear a good explanation for why you think this is acceptable behaviour in a conversation (not trying to backseat mod or anything, but if somebody did this to me in a real conversation I'd be seriously offended and want to stop talking to them).
"I don't want either of those to be the case" is not enough of a disclaimer for throwing a line like this. Please be less antagonistic even if you think someone is being disingenuous.
I don't understand why the great grandparent post of the chain did not already invite a moderator response. Do you consider referring to public figures as "(outgroup) creep[s]" to be within the rules, conducive to maintaining a good tone of debate here or at all inviting (outgroup) to participate, or do you think there are some extenuating circumstances here that justify it in this particular case? As childish as the impulse is, I'm really finding myself wishing I could go around referring to moderately respected figures on the other side as "rightist creeps" until I find out directly, but I presume that the only thing that would happen would be downvotes and outpourings of organic hostility that would make any modhat warnings on top of them superfluous in broadcasting how one is now okay around here but not the other.
Generally speaking, we'd prefer people not just throw insults, but public figures are more or less fair game as long as there is some substance to the post and not just ranting about how much you hate Trump or Biden or Cleon Petersen. But yes, if you were complaining about, say, right-wing media and called Matt Walsh a "fascist creep," you'd probably get downvoted, but you would not be modded for that alone.
Ugh. I don't think this is a good interpretation of the rules (and I think I explained in a parallel post why I think that). Allowing this sort of insult adds nothing to the discourse, raises the temperature and very likely turns away people in a way that reinforces any existing ideological slant as it simply allows dominant majorities to assert their dominance. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part but I think we used to be much stricter about that sort of thing, which, yes, resulted in a constant low rumble of discontent -- but it's not like even CWR, which embodied the "we will not stifle your ability to express your righteous feelings" approach and predictably listed right until it capsized for it, didn't have the same amount of malcontents for whom even the little rules that were still enforced were too much.
On that matter, how would you feel about "Jewish creeps"? (I'm now noticing to my dismay that my phone's predictive keyboard app has already learned to suggest the second after the first thanks to this subthread.)
If you can persuade Zorba we should crack down on insulting public figures, we'll do that, but generally speaking, we've never modded someone just for being mean to celebrities and politicians. Only if their entire post is a screed about Person I Hate or general booing. Frankly, I am not willing to go through an election season trying to enforce "charity" towards all political candidates. "Trump is a big orange fat-ass!" is a pretty easy comment to mod because it's low effort and inflammatory for no good purpose, but IIRC you (or someone else) wanted me to mod someone for calling Kamala Harris a "weak candidate." Come on.
The rules against making derogatory generalizations about a broad group of people (which includes posters here) covers that.
The scenario I'm imagining is calling someone (say, Epstein) one. If that amounts to a derogatory generalisation about Jews, how does calling the artist a "leftist creep" not amount to the same generalisation about an even broader group of people (leftists)?
Conversely, I'm not arguing against "leftist creep" on the basis of it being insulting to this particular public figure. Instead, I think, as you (correctly, in my eyes) perceive for the Jewish example, that calling anyone a "leftist creep" is implying that the creepiness is related to being a leftist, which is an attack on a broad group of people including potential posters here.
That was not me, and I would not advocate for any restrictions on that. As I said, it's not about insulting the public figure, but about using public figures to insult potential forum participants (by imputing bad qualities and implying them to be a consequence of tribal membership): e.g. calling Harris a "leftist bore" would be bad.
Using "Jewish" or "leftist" or "Republican" as a negative adjective might be a flag for boo outgrouping, but not necessarily. You are the second person today who seems to want to drag out a thread as long as possible with "Can someone say this? How about this? How about if they say this? Why is this okay but not that?" I don't feel like these threads are productive, because unless we can arrive at "My judgment is perfectly in accord with yours, and also I can specify every possible scenario for future reference," you're not going to be satisfied. I believe I explained my reasoning adequately, and if you find it unconvincing, I will refer you, once more, to El Hefe to persuade him that we should change our moderation approach.
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I would consider it bad, but not bad in a way that specifically infringes on the goals of this forum like the political group qualification does. Similarly, it surely would make a difference if someone were called a "Jewish creep" (and probably draw much more mod attention, as they still seem to be interested in keeping the forum from pushing away anyone outside of the "JQ right").
I don't think those are good either, but well. It's already been the case for quite a while that the more intellectual right wingers want to lower Trump's status so as to move on to a better strategy, explaining why organic opposition to anti-Trump posting is lower. Finally, the group identifier really is doing a lot of work. (Compare calling Epstein a "creep" to calling him a "Jewish creep".)
One is just denigrating the person; the other one is suggesting that the imputed negative qualities are related to, characteristic of or even a consequence of being a member of the group in question.
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This argument exists because you are being deceptive about the artist behind them. You actively called him "apolitical" - again, you were actively lying in order to bolster your argument, in the same way I would be if I took one of those dumb Trump NFTs depicting him as a superhero and said "Oh, we can't really be sure of the original artist's beliefs - you could interpret this from a left wing OR right wing perspective!".
You were the one who claimed that he was apolitical, so you very clearly thought that what he believed was actually relevant, otherwise you would not have brought it up.
My reading is that this work is as shallow as it appears to be on the surface - a depiction of his outgroup (right wing/flyover white people) being humiliated and tortured in the way that he thinks they would find most distressing (racial violence from THEIR outgroup). When you look at the piece in the context of the rest of his work, the most obvious interpretation seems all the stronger to make.
You might want to look at a broader range of his stuff. See what I wrote here. He is certainly not apolitical, but I do not think that the idea that his work is meant to depict "his outgroup (right wing/flyover white people) being humiliated and tortured in the way that he thinks they would find most distressing (racial violence from THEIR outgroup)" holds up.
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