Ian - one of the reasons that I had such arguments with my bigoted and very prejudiced father was that he would not even listen to the propositions I advanced to challenge his racist views. My arguments - as a teenage lad - may well have been flawed, but he refused to even listen to them, much less discuss them. But note - I held my views for reasons that were good to me and was prepared to back them with such facts as I could muster.

If you're going to raise the question of the actions of the bankers as an example in this discussion, then I have to say that - having read as much as I can in financial publications of the causes of the current recession - I firmly believe that the bankers had a part to play in it through greed and bad business practice. I also believe they were aided, consciously or unconsciously by governmental actions such as removing financial controls, over a long number of years.

Now, if I had to defend my view, which I must stress is neither a left-wing nor a right-wing view (apolitical), if pressed I would muster the arguments and evidence which had led me to that view. If I flatly refused to do that and simply kept repeating my view without backing it up then that - I believe - is the difference between rational debate and bigotry.

I'm not suggesting we debate the bankers in this thread - plenty of other threads about that (!) - but I'm trying here to show where the line is drawn. I also believe, by the way, that phrases like "lying scheming bastards" have no part in a rational debate.

What gets my goat sometimes is that, when one expresses an opinion on one matter on a forum such as this, depending on the matter in question and the viewpoint expressed, one tends to get fitted immediately into a particular political slot. If one expresses sympathy for subject X, one becomes a "lefty"; if one expresses sympathy for subject Y, one becomes a "nazi". Puerile stuff - life isn't black and white but many shades of grey. Black and white are the colours of bigotry