Such Charming Folk

I mentioned in my opening post that although I often frequent the Absolute Zero (AZU) blog and find the posts to be thought provoking, I find the comments section to be a disappointing mire of self congratulatory backslapping, substandard thought processes and outright hostility to anyone not blindly accepting of the views and ideology of the blog's authors. Questioning the logic of a post or disagreeing with the listed contributors usually leads to an outpouring of vitriol or, on occasion, accusations that the sceptic is actually either a paedosexual or a 'paedo enabler' (an essentially meaningless made up term addressed previously on this blog). In the past I've seen the rather pathetic attempts by a poster who goes by the name of 'lameo' to ingratiate himself with the main contributors when they've turned on him. His crime? He questioned whether a quote attributed to a politician may have been misinterpreted by Stitches77 in her post (see post and comments). I ended up feeling quite sorry for the guy as he reminded me of the loser at school who tries so hard to hang out with the popular gang and never quite gets that they have nothing but contempt for him.

In the past couple of days I've questioned a post on AZU in which they placed a lot of importance on a quote from a man who tortured and sexually assaulted two children. He made a comment that "The truth is that I am not an exception, I am the rule! Most sex offenders are just like me". The contributor who posted the article, Daydreamer of Oz, considered it so relevant that he even titled the post based on it. My point was simply that, when criminals like this man make statements in support of their actions they are roundly decried and their statements treated as lies and propaganda so it seems somewhat hypocritical to me for AZU to suddenly quote him as though his statement is truth and they accept him as an authority. The response to my audacity in questioning this was:

"Can you not read? I don't think his statements hold any validity whatsoever. Just like the RSO activists today don't.

Why should we put weight on the propaganda they are spreading that is EXACTLY like Duncan's?

HOW are they different?

It appears to me you have a definite bias and are unable to comprehend the question.

Stitches
Stitches77 Homepage 09.16.08 - 9:53 am "

Yes, that's correct. Because I disagree with the self proclaimed experts, I must therefore be some sort of imbecile who is unable to read or comprehend (see post and comments).

It's a shame that the contributors take this approach as, quite frankly, their back catalogue of comments show that as passionate as they are, they're not the sharpest tools in the shed and could really benefit by listening to others.

Now, I have no doubt that by constructively criticising the good folk at AZU I'm opening myself to the likelihood of being attacked as a paedo, a paedo enabler, a blame gamer or some other nonsense term but I'm not about to be bullied into silence. It's these very attitudes that prompted me to start this blog and offer a forum for both sides to be able to post without worrying about being cyber bullied. I just hope I can continue to maintain the neutrality.