Ludwig wrote this, "people are supposed to debate things in a non personal and non derogatory manner. To stoop to personal slander or trying to take the discussion into personal territory is fundamentally against the principles of this forum".

Ludwig "conveniently" neglected to say that he himself has written the following abuse in this topic, directed towards forum members:

"Well keep those blinkers on then" ... personal abuse directed at Poirot.

"Go suck an egg Pericles and hopefully choke on it".

"The likes of Is Mise"

"That goes beyond your normal polarised statements Poirot".

"You are not thinking in a balanced manner".

"Talk about being desperate" ... a personal put down to Poirot.

"But not a trace of brains to be seen anywhere" ...personal abuse directed at a forum member.

"That's a wonky conclusion".

"You're way worse than I thought. Very polarised and blinkered".

These are examples of an abusive Ludwig from a mere 20 pages out of 80 pages. I got tired of reading Ludwig's personal abuse against forum members, so I quit looking after 20 pages.

"....people are supposed to debate things in a non personal and non derogatory manner. To stoop to personal slander or trying to take the discussion into personal territory is fundamentally against the principles of this forum"

Yes, Jay, I must admit to a bit of a chuckle over that little gem of hypocrisy.

<< I beg your forgiveness I don't mean to offend. I do believe we need to see the lighter side of things at times. Cheers my friend. >>

Thanks Paul. Much appreciated.

I was thinking about your comments after I had posted my response and it had occurred to me that you probably had no ill-intent and that I had only seen the worst possible interpretation.

<< Do you see that, no matter how good your argument is you are never going to overcome the innate prejudices within the subject… >>

ABSOLUTELY!

Thankyou very much indeed for that.

I was just writing a post along the lines of this thought, going into some considerable detail of how people react to unpalatable opinions or suggestions, in just the same way as has been the case with all sorts of things, like homosexuality, racism, and my previously-mentioned example of the population debate. I won’t bother now.

<< If Harris had committed, say a financial crime, ripped millions off the tax system, in time he would have been able to redeem himself in the eyes of the community, make restitution for his crime, but with this one he can't. >>

Another very good point, which I was going to delve right into shortly on this thread.

Kiddie-fiddlers, even at the very light end of the spectrum as with Harris, have done things that are simply irredeemable. And yet those who conduct all manner of much more serious crimes, which have much bigger effects on many more people, can completely redeem themselves if they try hard enough.

At least three people on this thread should take a good long hard look at themselves in relation to this. Their intolerance of what really are quite gentle and reasonable suggestions of POSSIBILITIES of different interpetations, is really quite extreme. If they expressed the same level of intolerance in relation to various other subjects, they'd be absolutely howled down for it.... in much the same way as they howling me down on this subject.

I see an enormous amount of duplicity here.

Ludwig,

"Kiddie-fiddlers, even at the very light end of the spectrum as with Harris..."

Well, there you go folks.....Luddy considers what Harris did to "C" "at the light end of the spectrum"

Says it all.....

"Their intolerance of what really are quite gentle and reasonable suggestions of POSSIBILITIES of different interpetations, is really quite extreme. If they expressed the same level of intolerance in relation to various other subjects, they'd be absolutely howled down for it..."

I love the way you label it "intolerance".

We "disagree" with you mitigations and excuses for a grown man abusing children "knowing" that it is illegal.

How about we label your disagreement with the law, the judge, societal mores and us as "intolerance"?

"I see an enormous amount of duplicity here."

Here you go again. Complaining about personal asides and then labeling those of us who reject your line of thinking as duplicitous in our arguments.

Ludwig,

You are in a deep hole of your own digging and with no ladder, about the only way out is to let the sides crumble in silence then slowly climb up the fallen debris.

Thanks again Poirot for demonstrating your incredibly blinkered view…. and for showing how right Paul is with this statement:

<< Do you see that, no matter how good your argument is you are never going to overcome the innate prejudices within the subject… >>

I said a few posts back:

>> But we do need to consider other possibilities. <<

You replied:

<< No we don't. >>

Well that just says it all. You are not really blinkered at all. You’ve got the shutters down completely. You are just blocking out anything other than what that great esteemed unquestionable guru of a judge came up with.

What an incredibly hopeless way of thinking. Or I should say; of NOT thinking!