Did you know that the incidence of "straw man" has increased a kegiligion since this thread was introduced?

I don't have anyone on my 'foe' list. My psyche is not so fragile that the very sight of a post of someone I disagree with is too much for me to cope with.

Much more robust than the 'fingers-in-ears' defence others seem so proud of.

On the EU thing, I was impressed by just how many things in asfish' post were spectacularly wrong.

Like the idea that asylum seekers at Calais are all skipping through country after country, just because the UK is a supposed soft touch.

This despite France, Italy, Sweden and Germany all accepting more asylum seekers than the UK.

The laws for non-EU nationals emigrating to the UK are completely under our own government control, and we are actually more harsh and more selective than a lot of other countries. Even the Daily Mail has moved on to worrying about EU immigration instead.

Ireland?

EBG is right; this forum, never far from being stupidly left-leaning as an unfortunate legacy issue, but at least hitherto open to debate - is now pretty much an uber-PC, ultralefty, ultrafeminist, teatime revolutionary echo chamber. If you don't subscribe to such ludicrous views you're a "troll", a trouble maker or whatever; even those with whom I've been able to do business with in the past here are no longer receptive and/or are spouting the same totally uncompromising drivel.

So there was a very small amount of people you could talk to before and now you can't even talk to those people. Why are you still here talking then? And I honestly don't mean that as a rhetorical invitation to leave, I'm left genuinely wondering why? If it's as pointless and miserable an experience as you've been saying for the last few pages of this thread then why would you carry on? Why would anyone? Unless you're some kind of forum masochist.

I've said this before; some of us don't just seek out internet havens where everyone else agrees with you. With no self-congratulatory ego to stroke I can't think of anything more boring. Only speaking for myself there.

Sorry to disappoint, but as EBG says, some of us welcome the chance to have our views challenged, indeed ripped to pieces on occasion.

I actually thought that was pretty clear but as there's no way you'd have purposely misrepresented it just so you could post a pile of smug self-congratulatory nonsense yourself I can only assume I somehow didn't explain it very well.

Doesn't that contradict your previous post bemoaning the fact that there's no one left here you can 'do business with'? Both these things can't be true.

Fuck sake. I didn't even say there was NO ONE I could 'do business with', your words, not mine (again).

even those with whom I've been able to do business with in the past here are no longer receptive and/or are spouting the same totally uncompromising drivel.

Things?? You have only quoted one and even then you assume its from the Daily Mail.

I read it here http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/

There are thousands of people there, last time I looked France wasn't sharing its borders with any none EU states aside from Switzerland so I would guess these people have travelled through several places to camp in Calais.

So if they don't want to settle in France and the next landmass in a forward direction is the UK where would you suggest they want to go?

The UK accepted 3000 more asylum seekers in 2013 than Italy did, the rest of your figures are correct. So your not spectacularly wrong just a little wrong.

Heck I even have plenty of time for Hearthly when he's talking about Hearthstone, so context matters too.

All EU states take in non-EU migrants. Sweden takes in shitloads. Are you suggesting that whoever borders non-EU states should take them all in? That seems a bit harsh if you're on the edge of the union!

And none of that changes the fact that the UK's stance on non-EU migrants is entirely the UK's own policy and nothing to do with membership of the EU!

I think the problem is in the belief that you can, if not win them over, at least talk to a person about the objective aspects of your opinion and have them give some kind of partial, qualified agreement.

You think you're being perfectly reasonable but come up against immovable brick walls that insist you're wrong wrong wrong. You've offered discussion and possible compromise to people who have rigid opinions that logic won't alter. It's easier to call you a far right Tory because that puts you in a handy straw-man box so that their brain doesn't have to stretch against the possibility that it's not quite so simple.

If the GamerGate thread is anything to go by, this forum is filled with such people.

It's easier to call you a far right Tory because that puts you in a handy straw-man box so that their brain doesn't have to stretch against the possibility that it's not quite so simple.

In the GG thread, pretty much everyone acknowledges and agrees that not everyone in the GG 'movement' is a horrible misogynist person

The response was merely to tell me I had a lack of knowledge about GamerGate specifically otherwise I'd know that in this instance they were ALL inherently evil and had no excuses. I say again, sheesh.

Your ability to read sentences as something completely other that what's actually written is powerfully impressive today.

Gamersgate was poisonous toxic twaddle from the start; it was stillborn as sexist shite and anyone who's rallied to it has no one to blame but themselves for the activities they're now associated with. You don't get a free pass for being too stupid to realise that.

Regardless they are associated with a new 'movement' which have used vile and illegal methods to target people who disagree with their views, since this has been going on from day on of the Gamersgate saga then yes it is hard not to tar them all with the same brush, the whole group hide behind the shield of silence created by the vile actions of the few. They are complicit by not speaking out against these actions.

You keep talking about GG as if it's a movement with a few bad eggs. It really isn't! From the very start the whole thing was malicious and had no goals compatible with being a decent human being.

the entire movement is entirely based on malicious action rooted in falsehood and mysogeny

that principle that you've decided to champion really doesn't apply here, as a small amount of background reading would show

not a single one of the quotes you've pulled out says that anyone thinks that everyone involved is inherently evil

everyone involved is either bad, or tacitly condoning their actions, and as such should either accept the condemnation

Not a challenging concept.

Read these words slowly so you can fully absorb what I'm saying. I'm not knocking your desire to conflate two different types of people who operate differently under the same banner (although I could), I'm calling you stupid for trying to argue that you think calling one bad because you consider the other one bad is *different* from calling them all bad outright, which is the sentiment you were saying didn't exist in my earlier quotes. You've just contradicted yourself utterly and then tried to bafflingly dig your way out of your own hole.

Seriously, a person could go mad trying to unpick this pinhead-dancing bullshit, but instead I think it's time to call it a day.

You seem to be saying that you think it is some kind of broad brush "Oh, they're all equally bad" generalisation. It isn't.

I've got a minor op today