paddoboy:
Before I respond to your latest series of outraged outbursts, I think it would be useful for us to take stock of how we got to where we're at in this conversation.
In post #1 you wrote that you were celebrating Australia Day.
In post #4, I posted a one-sentence post noting that the celebration is controversial and referred to as Invasion Day by some indigenous Australians.
In post #6, you acknowledged my post. You then introduced the topic of the date of Australia Day, and you said that in your opinion date should remain 26 January.
In post #7, I asked you why a different date wouldn't be equally suitable for the celebration.
In post #8, you said you "really wouldn't give a stuff" about changing the date, but changing it "would upset others".
For the rest of the thread, on the topic of the date of Australia Day, you have given every impression that you "give a stuff" about retaining the date. In fact, as the thread has progressed your stance on the date has become more and more hard-line. You also gradually took to trying to paint me as some kind of change-the-date crusader, despite my informing you on several occasions that it's not really my battle to fight.
Very early on in the thread, you started getting all personal with me, making lots of assumptions about me based on nothing. One of the first was your claim in post #8 that I'm not interested in sport. You presumed to tell me that I ought to start watching more sport. In post #10 you asked if I had any indigenous friends, and in post #11 I answered that question. Since then, you have brought up that matter repeatedly, as if the opinions of your indigenous friends (as reported second-hand by you) are somehow representative of all indigenous Australians' views on Australia Day. Later on, you started claiming that I've never met an indigenous person - another baseless and incorrect assumption you made about me. You have continued to add to this list of baseless personal assumptions throughout the thread. You have not stopped doing this even after I have pointed out (repeatedly) that you're doing it, so I can only assume you make these things up in order to try to attack me personally. Meanwhile, you complain bitterly when I quote your own words to draw conclusions about your opinions - i.e. deducing things about you not based on assumptions but on what you actually write in the thread.
As you've become progressively angrier over the course of the thread, you have accused me of a number of bizarre things. In post #10 you as good as suggested that I was advocating that all white people be kicked out of Australia. In post #17, you asked me if I was promoting a revolution or riots. How did a discussion about the date of Australia Day lead you to seriously consider either of those things - or did you just make up that stuff in order to try to paint me as unreasonable or unhinged?
You started accusing me of deliberate dishonesty as early as post #17 of the thread. Obviously you have a big problem when people question or disagree with you. You get angry. You really started to go to town with your accusations in post #22, which you dedicated entirely to trying to prove how dishonest and "desperate" I supposedly am. Meanwhile, I was concentrating on the thread topic, posting a whole lot of useful information about public opinion polls in my post #24.
The matter of your sexist attitudes came up first in post #19 of the thread. I brought it up in a one-sentence passing comment as a reference to one other thread in which you were "highly resistant to changing your ways". You chose to re-open the discussion of your sexism in more detail in post #20, where you introduced a new example that was supposed to defend your stance on that in the previous discussion.
Realising that re-opening the discussion about sexism would (a) threaten to take us off topic and (b) most likely result in the same outcome as last time - namely you making an unpleasant spectacle of yourself - I asked you, in post #26, "Do you want me to dig up that old thread? Do you want to reopen that discussion?". In the same post, I also gave you the following undertaking:
I won't comment on this until you give me your consent to reopening your sexist attitudes as a discussion topic. Please let me know. I'm extending you this courtesy because I feel like you had a hard time of it last time we tackled the issue head on. You seem very set in your ways and you're obviously unwilling to change your unwelcome behaviour. Nevertheless, I don't want to put you through the wringer again unless you're really keen.
In other words, while you were looking for excuses to accuse me of dishonesty and to make personal assumptions about me, I was extending you the courtesy of asking you to confirm what you seemed to be leaning towards - namely re-opening the sexism discussion and continuing essentially from where we left off in that discussion. In that same post, you will notice, I was
still discussing the topic of Australia Day, adding new content.
In post #28, you posted this, in answer to my question about re-opening the sexism discussion:
You appear rather delusional James, much like river and MR.
You want to open that thread and somehow pretend that I looked foolish, be my guest.
In other words, your response to a post in which I considered your feelings and was courteous enough to ask about your desire to re-open an old, bruising discussion, was to accuse me of being delusional, right off the bat. I do note, however, that you consented to re-opening the discussion - actually invited me to do so, in fact. If there was an lingering doubt about your intent, you leapt straight in to discussing that topic yourself, also in post #28.
After that, of course, you really started piling on the personal insults and assumptions.
If you think I wanted to reopen the sexism discussion, you only have to read post #32, in which I clearly set out my feelings on that matter:
I kind of feel bad every time I make an example of you. But you so often insist on doubling down. It is only by speaking out against the kinds of ingrained attitudes that you have that we can hope to change the world for the better. The first step is raising awareness. I apologise if, in the process of using your posts as an example, you end up getting hurt. However, you can't say I didn't warn you.
Things went on from there, and that's how we got to where we're now at, in a nutshell. You're all upset because you've ended up feeling the same way you did the first time I went around the block with you on the topic of everyday sexism and harassment. The time that you've spent that hasn't involving dreaming up new ways to insult me, you have spent desperately trying to defend your own honour. At the same time, you keep digging the hole deeper for yourself, what with all the preening around your own sexual attractiveness.
There's a whole extra facet of the discussion that started off with your posting of a racist song, but I won't take time to review that particular part of the discussion in this post. It's an uphill battle to try to argue that racist or sexist songs are nothing to be concerned about, and it's also sadly symptomatic of the attitude that everyday sexism is nothing to be concerned about.
Now, before all this got sidetracked and heated, what was the discussion actually about? Oh yes, Australia day. And what was our disagreement around that, exactly? Oh yes, something about changing the date. And what did you have to say about that idea, eventually? Well, hidden among all the personal and off-topic crap, we find this:
In post #54, I wrote:
A person who is open to reasonable change, like I am, would say "If Australia's indigenous people regard the national day of celebration offensive in light of the official date of that celebration, and there is no compelling reason to continue to celebrate on that date, then the date should be changed to a mutually-agreeable date."
And, a few posts later, in #57, you almost agreed with me:
Yes!! If a reasonable large majority of Australia's indigenous folk regard that day as offensive, and if there is no compelling reason [which there is] then the date can be considered to be changed to a date mutually agreed upon. [if such mutual agreement is even possible]
Apart from your mistake that there are compelling reasons to retain the date, we actually seem to be in agreement on the matter that started the whole horrible ball rolling in the first place. I can quite easily live with the remaining difference of opinion we have on that topic.
Now, the real question is whether you want to keep going on the whole sexism topic. I'll respond to your most recent posts next. After that, it's up to you. That discussion was your choice from the start.
