If you don't agree with them, you can argue against them.

I said that. So, that's right, Steve, no-one is entitled to have their opinion not challenged. The same to Greg F & others. I don't hang around here much these days, for various reasons, and this is a long thread. I was responding only to what I thought I was reading in the upper reaches.

And no, Richard, everyone does, in my opinion, have a RIGHT (insofar as I believe in rights, but that's a whole other discussion) to their opinion. It is somewhat curtailed these days by laws, in various countries, about hate speech. But you don't challenge hate speech by banning it; you destroy it by showing how f***ing stupid it is. Banning it merely drives it underground, and then more twisted seeds sprout in badly illuminated soil. I digress a little...

The problem is twofold. First, there are those who do not understand the difference between objective & subjective, between fact & opinion. So opinion is fact & gods help you if you're on the other side!

And the second is the way you challenge. Now, mea culpa, I've spent a long time learning gentler ways of getting my point across, and I am often still imperfect. Particularly to utter dickheads who aren't interested in debate, only in yelling "I'M RIGHT. YOU'RE DISAGREEING SO YOU MUST BE WRONG!!!" Or words to the that effect.

It's all very well being right, but there's precious little point, as far as I'm concerned, in being Cassandra - always right, but never listened to.

As Bill says, Subjectivity is one of the most powerful forces in the universe of human discourse. The problem is that all too many people can't recognise when they stop being objective. And, all too often, the most driven, determined and persuasive are those who have not the slightest inkling that they long since stopped being objective...