mhaze,

Predicting my reply doesn’t make you right, it just means you knew I’d hold you to your own words.

//Now I know that you're going to pivot to the 'vibe' of what I said…//

This isn’t about a vibe. You wrote:

“Brexit allowed the UK to negotiate outside the EU and get a materially better trade deal with the US. Even the rabid anti-Brexiteers are now towing the line.”

That’s not a mild comment about a single tariff - it’s a broad, political claim about Brexit delivering a “materially better” outcome and critics conceding defeat.

When challenged, you shrank it down to “just a 10% vs 15% tariff,” then accused me of imagining the larger claim.

Seeing that I’d point this out doesn’t absolve you - it confirms you know you moved the goalposts.

"Predicting my reply doesn’t make you right,"

In fact it does, although it will always go over your head.

Truthfully, reading people who are more prepared to beclown themselves than admit an error is child's ply.

Again, mhaze, it only proves your behaviour is predictable.

//In fact it does…//

Predicting that someone will respond to being cornered by deflecting or downplaying doesn’t make you right about the argument itself. It only proves your behaviour is predictable.

//“Reading people… beclown themselves… than admit an error…”//

You’re describing something I've done just recently - I admitted an attribution error earlier, cited better sources, and corrected myself.

Meanwhile, you’ve spent post after post shrinking claims, shifting definitions, and pretending victories are complete when they’re not - and still won't retract them, even after they're linked to and laid out clearly and chronologically.

That’s not me “beclowning” myself, it’s you refusing to hold your own claims steady long enough for anyone to take them seriously.

Being predictable doesn’t win arguments; it just makes your evasions easier to spot.

At this rate, you’re starting to sound like a parody of yourself.

""You didn’t use those exact phrases, true, " says JD. The implication of that phrase, the vibe of it, is that JD admits he's wrong but can't bring himself to admit it. Really he is admitting in the implications of what he wrote.

Because as we know, in JD-land, the implications of it, the vibe of it, are more important than the actual facts of it.

I wasn’t wrong about your Brexit retreat, mhaze.

//“JD admits he's wrong… the implication… the vibe…”//

I already showed how it played out here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10633#371273

Your wording was broader (“materially better deal… anti-Brexiteers towing the line”), and you narrowed it only after it didn’t hold up. That’s not my “vibe,” that’s your edit history. You’ve yet to concede it.

//“Implications more important than facts…”//

As though the two are mutually exclusive.

Facts:

- Original claim: Brexit delivered a materially better trade deal, even critics conceded.
- Revised claim: Just meant UK’s tariff is slightly lower.

That’s not implication, that’s a documented retreat. You can meme about “JD-land” all you like, but it won’t change what’s written in your own posts.

And until you can own that retreat, every “my work is done” sounds less like victory and more like wishful thinking.

OH no.... after he admitted (or implied) he got it all wrong, JD is now trying to back-track on his admission.