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nshepperd comments on Belief as Attire - Less Wrong
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Eliezer's probably saying that the patrons of said Alabama bar would be, shall we say, highly unlikely to appreciate the neutral point of view, probably due to ingroup biases. It's the arguments-as-soldiers thing again, and you're implicitly putting yourself on the wrong side.
I've never been to Alabama myself, so I don't know whether this is actually true or not. I suspect it wouldn't be as bad as he's implying (it might start an argument, but I wouldn't expect a fight), but that might be my optimism acting up.
Maybe it's just because I'm a New Yorker, but trust me that you don't have to cross the Mason-Dixon line for people to be willing to sock someone who said something even remotely positive about the 9/11 hijackers. Things have cooled down a bit in the last twelve years, but there are still some things you just don't say. Or imply, in this case.
I know that I would personally have trouble restraining myself if someone expressed actual support for, or tried to equivocate-away, the crimes of terrorists in my presence. It's absolutely an issue of tribal loyalty, and not even entirely irrational; expressing empathy for an enemy weakens your resolve against them, which is not a particularly wise choice when the only way our tribe can lose is by giving up.
It seems pretty obvious to me that your tribe can also lose by directing its energy in the wrong direction, resulting in harms to yourselves. As, for example, has already happened with TSA, so I hear. (This doesn't mean "the terrorists have won" but it does mean you have lost.)