Quote Originally Posted by Backwards Observer View Post
Well, as you apparently intended to insult "everyone", I feel much better now.
Straight up I was out of line. I can be very caustic and I'm quite aware of it. That's why I normally make a lot of effort not to be. I've had the flu and when I'm ill I don't do quite as well with that as I'd wish. For me, while I'm both capable and quite comfortable in engaging in completely brutal debate, there's a lot to be said for doing so as civilly as possible. A large part of that involved not making personal attacks. It's one thing to denigrate an idea, quite another to denigrate a person. I don't seek to do the latter.

My apology was meant for you directly, but also for the silent multitudes. In my experience it isn't uncommon for people who're risk averse when it comes to free speech to form all sorts of impressions without expressing any of them. So, it makes a degree of sense to address such things a bit more broadly.