petey your mask slipped the second I mentioned President Trump and you outed yourself.

No amount of bullshit will at it back in place.

Run along and play your pretend game on someone that has a slight chance of falling for it.

Well Number 5, you mean your Lord and Savior Donald Trump? No criticism of his holiness can be tolerated of course. Blasphemy!

Strange about the mask thing you know given that giant paragon of consistency Number 7 said "I am very happy to see that Donald Trump is losing ground to Ted Cruz, day by day, and that ever day, more people take off the blinders and wake up to his shenanigans."

Wait, who is wearing the mask here? I can see that one might need to spout bullshit to cover up such conflicts, quite understandable.

Nothing pretend about it but it does seem like you are devoting a lot of time to the defense. Is that "falling for it"?

Turnabout is fair play.

Well then Number5, I suppose you better invest in an anchor, because hot air rises.

I do believe they are readily available in Florida.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

And Number7 is a coward full of hot air. Anything which vaguely threatens his lord and savior Donald Trump causes him to become irrational and nearly incoherent, lashing out at the speaker.

He resorts to such petty tactics as using diminutives for the other speaker and is constantly engaging in logical fallacies. Perhaps he was flunked out of school so doesn’t know any better. Or perhaps he is impaired in his ability to express himself. He is afraid to tell us who he really is perhaps because he is just a nobody and has never accomplished anything in his life.

Or perhaps he is simply a dying old man who is cranky because he can’t sleep. Who knows?

On open-mindedness and tolerance.

I think some of what Lucifer may be noting might be better described as tolerance. It is true, I am not very tolerant of logical fallacies and personal attacks in public discussions. I try to avoid them and will sometimes note their erroneous nature.

I am actually just flat out unwilling to discuss people’s non-falsifiable beliefs. And I tend to think that many people resort to personal attacks out of a strong emotional reaction when their non-falsifiable beliefs are threatened. Oftentimes that occurs even if involving indirect threats. Once I know that is the case, I will just note that the beliefs appear to be non-falsifiable and I don’t care to discuss them. I suppose that to many with such beliefs that appears intolerant.

I am actually even stricter about religious beliefs. And I suspect many posters here have a strong faith so this will likely offend them. I simply will not discuss those beliefs per se. One time, when some relatives were in my house and insisted on continuing a religious discussion after being asked several times to stop it, I told them they had to leave. I regard such talk in many forms as essentially gibberish and I don’t want to have to listen to that in my own house or have my children exposed to it.

The vast majority of those people are average citizens who felt the election was mishandled and fraudulent.

I see what you mean. I don't think it is at all right what was done with the vast majority of prosecutions so do not mean to suggest that here.

In terms of comparison to my prior statement I note that they weren't just "speaking out". They were, admirably in my opinion, taking direct concrete action. Unfortunately in the police state we now live in that will sometimes get you in trouble unless you are very careful how you do it.

If they were going to physically try and prevent the certification, I think they just should have planned better.

I suspect as you say most were just average citizens who were misled into thinking they were involved in a peaceful protest. A fair amount of the misleading may have been by government agents. The problem is that in these sort of undercover actions the government agents are allowed to lie and suggest to you that you take an action they regard as illegal to try and trap you. The legal standard is that if they can show you were otherwise "inclined" to take the illegal action, they can prosecute you.

It’s laughable that you continue this charade that somehow people are being insincere because they don’t agree with you. 

 I have very strong beliefs.  I don’t gamble.  I also don’t consume alcohol.  And there are a few other items, but one of the big ones is I don’t suffer fools and bullshit artist. 

 We have a free and open forum here, no moderation.  We’ve never blocked or censored anyone, except the spammers who try to take over on occasion. 

 We all have opinions in which we are entitled.   Some people have a difficult time with free speech, and a forum of this nature is difficult for them. 

 Peter, you’ve been on several forums and it always has the same outcome.   Perhaps it’s time to realize it’s not everyone else, but maybe it’s you?

 Now, you’ll take that as a personal attack, it’s not.   It’s an observation.

Yes, I think you are focusing here on the personal characteristics of the speaker. This whole line of discussion is in some sense talking about the characteristics of the speaker, so that is ok for the time being.

I am not saying your beliefs are insincere, maybe I used the wrong word. Perhaps seriousness would be better.  I am just saying that I regard you as being less committed about them because you won't say who you are and there is no evidence that you take any action in the real world in support of them.

If you look carefully I think you will see that I almost never bring up such issues. I do make an exception for users like Number7 who constantly engages in personal attacks on the speaker and similarly for others. Normally I prefer to focus on the substantive issues of the discussion.

Knowing how to civilly discuss an issue in a public forum is a difficult thing for many people. In part this is because it is easy to misunderstand what the other party is really meaning. That is why I think it best to avoid ascribing motive or particular thoughts to the other speaker.

I am indeed a strong supporter of free speech and run an aviation forum dedicated to it. But it cuts both ways. If people want to use their free speech to attack others and engage in logical fallacies, then I amongst others may use our free speech to point it out. I am not in any way suggesting that you moderate the forum or prevent others from speaking. I just generally don't care to speak to them and will occasionally note their errors when appropriate.

  So on your forum, are you now requiring an actual name and contact information?

No. We do suggest providing a real name in the real name field on the profile but it is in no way required.

Jim and I discussed that and we feel that the ability to block people both ways provides an adequate and customizable solution to the problem of obnoxious posters writing under a pseudonym. For example, I would simply block Number7 because of his constant name calling and attacks on the speaker and then we would not be dealing with each other anymore.