Viddy well

Zandra is clearly very well educated and considered. She understands legal matters and abides by the constraints that they place upon her. Her testimony is detailed and she must know that she can be held to it and cross examined, yet she commits it to the record. However the salient point for me is that despite having every justification, she doesn't appear to have an axe to grind. She is bewildered and doesn't know what she will do next. She looks broken.

To admit I had a bit of a meltdown, and came across as everything I despise - pompous, lecturing and combative. Apologies to all.

Done - it's a decent legacy. I genuinely think you will will be a force for good . You're clearly you're your own man in the DBC debate despite other pressures. Edit: I do actually trust you to be a moderator. For what it's worth, I can't say that of Amadeus or John Wright. I think that you've navigated the pros and cons pretty well. We'll clash lances in the future but in the meantime, I think you've fitted in well as a moderator.

Says the great white hope of MF. For Goodness' sake, stop trying to be loved by the old boys. Stand up for justice, openness and honesty. God knows there's never been a greater demand for it! "Let your 'yes' mean and 'yes' your 'no' mean 'no!" Cast aside those tepid tendencies of the Laodicia!

Ah my goodness I think you're right - how disingenuous of me. Genuinely. Thank you for intervening on behalf of big-girl Gladys. Will you let me try again? Will you forgive my misstep and try again to make my point? Do I have your countenance to try and state my point again?

Let me examine that.

Indeed. I offer this not as an ad hominem but rather simply as raw disappointment. I long respected you as an impartial and balanced observer of forum affairs. We disagreed on specifics but that's to be expected. Now it is clear to me that you see yourself as an influencer, and a somewhat inadequate one at that when your impartiality is called out, you can't give anything other than mystical one-liners. You've been a sheep once, so the natural inclination is to assume you've been conditioned. Pithy mystical responses aside, let's see what you're really made of: your actions in the past were to conform and be a good little doggy despite the difficulties on recycling and do as you were told and you learned to love it. Why do you think that should translate to the Manx public? Is it a case of you-had-to-do-it-as-a-little-girl-so-now-everyone-else-should-have-to-do-it? Aka - domineering mother syndrome?

No - your arguments prevail upon their merits, and your opponents have nothing left by way of respectable counters.

Because the spirit of the forum is debate: arguments pitched against their arguments. It's the crucible of rational thought. Controversy is pitched against contemporary until the personal investment is burned away and the truths are revealed.

Come at me bro!

But I've bested you on every front of your argument. All you have left is stubbornness and fallacious responses. On what grounds do you think you're fit to remain as an impartial contributor? * You've tirelessly supported the DBC initiative despite conceding that you're not affected * You've said that social goods are worth the sacrifice of individual freedoms and yet in response to my challenges, you've said, "It would depend..." Sorry but you've been out-matched and you'll have to rely on sycophants to remove this thread and restore your credibility. Of course, it's incumbent on me to entertain any appeal you have against my charges, and I will of course (who, after all, knows everything about a case?). Over to you.

Yay - ftw! Kindly bow out of this debate then.

1. Sigh. Lots - of - people - are - complaining - that - some - councillors - received - no - votes - and - therefore - their - decisions - are - illegitimate. I'm - saying - that - is - irrelevant. As are you - so let's put this issue aside for God's sake. 2. Good oh. 3. Okay, let's take the dialectic seriously. It is a fact that seatbelts save lives. That is scientifically unequivocal. We should make people wear seatbelts. It is a fact that smoking kills people early. That is scientifically unequivocal. We should discourage smoking. It is not a proven that recycling makes any difference to climate change. Recycling seems to be an intuitive response to climate change, and on paper it is, but in reality it isn't. Is it? Thirty years of Green awareness has still resulted in Humpback whales chomping down on six-pack ring-pulls. 4. Yes, I chose my example very carefully to gain an echo reading on how serious your support for this initiative is. I have my answer and I'm pleased to say you're now more human and less dogmatic than I thought. For what it's worth, you still come across as one of those people who's privately pleased that others have it worse than them and derive some form of temporary security in an absurd universe than others have it bad and by implication it's not your turn. As you said in a previous post, you were told what to do, and you did. As an existentialist I call that shameful and bad faith; I reject that absolutely.

1. I think that the fact that Frank, Wells et al got no votes is irrelevant. You on the other hand think that this is important - how so? 2. Fine - it's clear you haven't read that book or had an opportunity to Google its relevance to my argument - thanks for the admission. 3. You're in the game of conflating recycling with seatbelts. One is (still, for the time being) a lifestyle choice (no matter how many people glue themselves to subways or frakking facilities) and the other (like anti-smoking, anti-obesity sugar taxes, etc.) is designed to save lives, as has been pointed out to you already. Do you now see the difference? 4. If strangers had to use a speculum to determine whether you were conforming with the social good, would you really be so even-minded about it? Sarah Hall was deliberately trying to provoke a particular sentiment with her literature; I'm going to assume that because you've not read the book you don't understand the nature of the examinations and their context. Can I suggest you buy the book and get some convictions?

Are we not both agreed that the zero-votes-equals-no-mandate argument is defunct? If so, can we dispense with that as a smoke screen and get to the issue of enforced-change-for-the-greater-good? I'm going to assume that you've not read the Carhullen Army or you've not been able to google a synopsis in time. So: Imagine a society where birth control is enforced for the greater good and the army is obliged to inspect women's IUDs at checkpoints to confirm compliance. As I said, it's a stretch but since you're in that game, then what's your opinion about enforced change for the good now? If the policy change actually affected you, would you meekly accept it, or would you revolt>?