Michael,
"Do, please, at least try to consider again what I have said here, which I firmly & sincerely believe to be the truth."
I too had no intention of re-joining this thread; I did so to respond to a comment by somebody else.
If you can't see the effect of the sheer weight of Keith's posts aimed scattergun fashion, sometimes at 'British Pakistanis', sometimes at 'BPs in northern towns and cities', bandying terms like "BPs are the overwhelming majority of offenders.", or "There are mountains of evidence that BPs are the overwhelming majority of offenders.", or "We can agree that Pakistanis are the majority offenders in Pakistani gangs"; and asking loaded questions like "Is this as a crime carried out by the majority of the Pakistani population in Britain?".... when you haven't specified your terms of reference, then one of us needs to visit Specsavers. As far as I am concerned, they become direct attacks on the culture as a whole, more so when they are repeated over and over and over and over and over again and especially when the blame has been firmly at the door of that culture almost from the outset.
I suggest you read those six pages over a couple of times slowly and ask yourself what the motive of a writer of such statements could possibly be. Of course he is not saying directly that all British Pakistanis are paedophiles, he daren't – it doesn't work like that and it doesn't have to; it's the drip – drip – drip effect that does the damage; something that Keith excels in.
I have suspected in the past, and now am left with no doubt whatever that Keith is a racist; that is plain from his contributions to the 'Death for homosexuality' and 'immigration' and other similar threads, which he takes seriously enough to deny he has said some of the things that are set down in black and white.
Nor do I have any doubt that he is dishonest and is prepared to manipulate 'evidence' to support his stance – a fact you passed off as a misdemeanour and didn't refer to again, and which he proffered three (or four) different and conflicting explanations for - obviously something we disagree over the significance of.. For me, that indicated not only prejudice, but also purpose in that prejudice
And don't get me started over his 'friend's' hilarious and sudden "I only done it 'cos of the drugs m'lud" conversion - move over Elmer Gantry, you've been seriously upstaged!!! - certainly one of the lighter moments of this dire discussion.
If Keith is a 'victim' he has chosen to be such by dominating this thread the way he has chosen to and by his persistently keeping it alive (approaching 540 postings now). I feel no guilt in victimising him; as far as I am concerned he has attempted to victimise a whole culture and its people.
I have no doubt Keith will take some comfort from your support and, knowing him of old, I hope you don't find yourself playing Sinbad to his 'Old Man of the Sea'. I have no doubt of your sincerity, but I really am out of this sewer - life is far too short and there's far too little of it left.
Jim Carroll