Could this conversation ever really happen?

From: Mr Hat
Re your recent blog post. I know who you’re talking about and I agree
she was a complete idiot about the whole thing. I am interested,
however, in your opinion about the double standard that appears to be
applied by some in that crowd, where a cheater is shunned but a
violent abuser is welcomed as though nothing had happened. What’s your
opinion on that?
….
Reply :RedGiant
Who is the violent abuser? i’m not sure who you are talking about.
…
18:17
Mr Hat
RockPolisher. Even if you don’t know about it, enough of that crowd
do, and they turn a blind eye because the victim wasn’t one of them. I
was a direct witness to one incident of domestic violence and many of
verbal abuse (unfortunately his now ex decided not to press charges,
but I wasn’t the only one there), and he has made threats including
death threats to me and others.
…
18:27
RedGiant
a) what did he actually do
b) i find it fascinating that you can turn a totally nother incident
that has nothing to do with RockPolisher, into something about RockPolisher.
…
18:41
Mr Hat
They’re associated in my mind because the shunning of Mrs Speeddate makes the
double standard so stark, and because I think he ought to be shunned
like she has been. I was interested to know what you thought since I
consider you more mature and sensible than most in that crowd; and I’m
glad I brought it up given it turns out you didn’t know.

It was mainly verbal abuse — both the shouting kind and the emotional
kind, threatening to burn down her house if she dumped him, and trying
to stop her seeing her friends — but he did attempt to restrain her
when she was trying to leave him due to that abuse (a police badge
made him stop) and left bruises. The memory still scares me. I believe
there was more violence, but I was only a direct witness to the holes
it left in the wall.
…
20:41
RedGiant
“The shunning of Mrs Speeddate” is an interesting statement. the implication
of the use of ‘shun’ is that people shy away from her. Folk have made
their own decisions as to whether or not she is invited to their
events, based on what they think of what she’s done. She’s also pissed
of Mrs Bead over buying some beads from her and that in turn pissed off
a number of other people. Personality will out.

I was actually a champion of hers for a while – she dated Mr Dr and he
always spoke well of her, so i was extra pleasant to her over it.
however everything comes out in the wash eventually and people talk –
therein lies the realization that she attempted to fool the social
group over some things.

I also think it’s a little disingenuous for you to make the statement
that you wanted to know what i thought. I think what you wanted was to
spread the dissent about RockPolisher to me. it seems a little that this
entire post was started so that you could do your ‘RockPolisher is a
violent abuser’ statement.

violent abuser is a big claim, seeing how his actual ‘violence’ seems
to be an incident where he attempted to restrain her when she was
breaking up with him?

I have been present at a just-occured-call-police- stabbing (actually
two now i think about it), i’ve been present when someone has punched
a hole in my wall and broken my sink in a fit of rage at a party. i
have been present when someone got punched in the head at my 21st
(that was hardcore!). i’ve called the police on a suicide attempt of a
friend.
on each of these occasions, there was something terribly wrong – it
was a painful thing to witness, but also at each of these occasions
(other than the stabbings which is criminal), there was a long build
up of emotions and tensions that culminated in a not ideal event or
series of events.

I know RockPolisher well and i’ve known him since he was in first year. i
have seen a lot of him and i respect him.

i dont know enough to be able to say ‘this is what happened’. i will
actually get some info from RockPolisher on this before i really get down
here, but what i will say:

if RockPolisher was in a situation/relationship where he shouted and got
angry and yelled, or hit objects or lost his shit, what i want to know
– what the fuck happened to get him there. that is not normal
behaviour from him. i was really fucking rude to him at new years and
he got upset and didn’t stand up for himself. he doesn’t get angry, he
gets sad. i’ve never seen him angry or raise his voice. i’ve hung
around that house a lot and the person you describe does not exist.
I’ve known him over the last number of years. He is gentle, he is
kind, and he is sweet, even if he is sometimes a bit aspey, and i will
stand by him and say that you are telling whoppers when you say ‘this
is what he is’ and it’s bordering on libel to call someone a ‘violent
abuser’ in this case when he appears to have punched an inanimate
object out of anger. I don’t doubt there was some weird shit going
down with him and Ms Oddie. i don’t doubt it was distressing to be
around. i do doubt your sincerity with why you brought this up and i
very much doubt what you are saying is based on anything but your own
feelings about a friend of yours who was hurt.

I suspect the incident that you are discussing was the one where he
came home and found himself dumped and his things touched? i am
pulling stuff out of my memory here, i do not know the details.
Was this the time?
…
21:05
Mr Hat
No, I assumed you knew. I was sincerely interested in your opinion. Of
course it wasn’t typical behaviour for him; and of course things had
been shit between them for a while. There was fault on both sides, but
not enough to excuse the things I saw and heard. Although he has been
cold to me personally since, I remember well (and continue to observe
with other people) how friendly he usually is. That was what made it
so scary, both then and more recently when he made death threats to
ShitforBrains and myself. No matter what happened to Mr Floyd (and I trust and
believe you about all that; I’d appreciate the same courtesy), that
behaviour is inappropriate.

The main problem I have now is that he has chosen to deal with it by
avoiding everyone involved, rather than acknowledging what happened.
Even requesting an apology for whatever we may have done would have
been better. If you do talk to him about it, you’re welcome to assure
him that the lines of communication are not closed from my end.

I do feel that I and much of the rest of SocialGroup has been effectively
disowned by much of the old crowd for refusing to shun Mrs Speeddate over
something that, after all, is none of our damn business. This is why I
used the word “shun”. I’m not inclined to take sides in things that
are other people’s personal business, but when one side demands I take
one, I’m inclined to take the other. I can see that this may prima
facie sound hypocritical given my statements about RockPolisher, but I’m
not rejecting people for maintaining his friendship, and my sharing
the story is no worse than people explaining that Mrs Speeddate’s “open
relationship” was a fib.

…
3 January

18:20
RedGiant
“I do feel that I and much of the rest of Socialgroup has been effectively
disowned by much of the old crowd for refusing to shun Mrs Speeddate over
something that, after all, is none of our damn business.”

1a. I consider being publically duped and lied to my business. She
chose to put her lies out there. The people she lived with, she lied
to them too. Her family, she lied to them too. There are a lot of
people out there she lied to.
That being said, i know a lot of people who cheat (not generally in
the social group) and I am friends with them. It’s not the morals of
what she’s done, it’s the fact she dicked with everyone and fooled
them.
Also, there is a social contract and an expected behaviour, and she
has broken it. Some people will go ‘fuck her’ and stop speaking to
her. They will go to team Mr Floyd. Or at least NOT team Mrs Speeddate. That is
their choice. Staying on team Mrs Speeddate is your choice. I don’t care.

1b. who do you include in the ‘old crowd’? personally I’ve had barely
a conversation with any of those older crowd guys for ever after
December 2011. You may be surprised at how fractured the ‘old’ crowd
is socially.

1c. I would argue that Mrs Speeddate has never been part of the ‘old crowd’
since she and MrDr broke up over 10 years ago. She went to some stuff
over the years but not a lot, she seldom came to my things. I never
considered her one of the people who I cared that much about.
1d. Mrs Speeddate has chosen to not speak to Mr Floyd or his household. She walked
out on a number of friendships and has not looked back. She has made
some choices too -she has done some avoidance behaviours
1e. all break ups cause side-taking. I was in one recently that broke
the social group well and good. Oh my did it break it!!! People tend
to side with the person they like the most – the morals of what the
person has done has not a lot to do with it.

“but he did attempt to restrain her when she was trying to leave him
due to that abuse (a police badge made him stop) and left bruises”

I’m confused about this ‘police badge making him stop ’statement
Either :

she called the police while being restrained, in which case how come
she was able to make a phone call if she was being restrained. Assume
he let her get his or her phone out, dial 000, and speak to the
police. and did they both stand there, him holding her, until the
police came.
This one makes no sense to me

Or

She called the police BEFORE he touched her, seeing as the only actual
touching he did of her was to restrain her. In which case, she called
the police because she was in the process of dumping her boyfriend and
he was angry about it, and then in the interim time, he grabbed her
and held her until the police turned up released her. I am confused as
to why you would call the police because you were fighting with your
boyfriend. If she was not restrained at the time she called, and she
was scared of what was going to happen – wouldn’t she feel foolish
calling the cops to say that he’d not done anything? Why would they
come? What would she say on the phone? Come over, I’m having a fight
with my boyfriend.
This one also makes no sense to me.

Or

You (or another person/s) were there and were unable to force him to
let go of her, so one of the other people called the police. and then
you all stood around waiting for x minutes, while he held her and you
all waited for the police to come and say ‘let her go’.(having had
called police to attend me on a number of occasion, it
takes around 10-40 minutes for them to arrive. I would have thought
RockPolisher’s arms would get tired. I would have thought that the person
there might have stepped in and said ‘hey let her go’ and pried his
fingers off her if he didn’t.
This one also makes no sense to me.

So

What I’m really saying here is that unless you give me a more
reasonable explanation of the police event, I doubt very much the
police attended to tell RockPolisher to release her.

If the police arrived and did not charge RockPolisher with an offence, then
i’m not sure where the accusation of domestic violence comes in

“I believe there was more violence, but I was only a direct witness to
the holes it left in the wall”

From my understanding, this was caused by an overslamming of a door
and a hook going through a wall. Your implication on this was that
there was either items thrown or fists punch. That was a very
misleading statement from you, a bit of hyperbole on your part to make
it a bit more exciting

you believe there was violence? Do you ‘believe’ that he did any of
the following: punch her, hit her, kick her, throw her, throw an
object at her, spit on her? This is a really serious thing to accuse
someone of with no proof and just your own ‘belief’. If she said there
was violence, where is the evidence? If he says there was not violence
and she says there was, who does one believe?

This to me is similar to arguments about the existence of god.

The burden of proof is on the person making the statement, to prove
that statement.

In law one needs to prove guilt, not innocence. By this statement you
are telling me that RockPolisher is guilty because you believe him to be,
and you are stating it as fact and attempting to get in and counter my
arguments by saying things like “and I trust and believe you about all
that; I’d appreciate the same courtesy”.

You know Mrs Speeddate is guilty of adultery cause it’s clear and obvious and
she has admitted it to some people, including her family. It’s not a
matter of belief in her actions, she was found out and admitted it. I
don’t have to prove anything
. The things that are heresay, the things she said to him that I
totally believe she said, I did not repeat, because they are hearsay.
This is however, hearsay. It’s not proof and I wouldn’t personally go
around saying it without being a bit worried about being got for
slander.

The Mrs Speeddate cheating thing is a very different set of circumstances to
the accusation of violent behaviour to someone. Belief does not enter
into it and it should not. I’d be horrified if our legal system
followed your moral code here.

“I was interested to know what you thought since I consider you more
mature and sensible than most in that crowd”

I see this as an attempt at flattery, meant to make me pleased you’re
talking to me. It didn’t work.

I am experienced in a lot of things. I have heard from three different
women the post break up accusation of being hit/violence in order to
add weight to why they had to dump someone. Each time it all fell
apart on questioning. This in all honestly, smacks of this (pun
originally unintended but I left it in).

I think what you’re trying to do is use the ‘violence is evil’ card on
me so that I feel if I say ‘well hang on a moment’ you can jump in and
say that clearly I am supporting someone who is violent.
I am not.

There are two issues in your original question/ argument.
One, that violence is bad and people who commit it should be shunned
and treated badly socially. I have no issue with that. violence is
bad. i would hesitate at being mates very much with someone who was
violent.

However, you then have made another statement – that a particular
person I know is guilty of this crime/misdemeanour/behaviour – and I am
attempting to establish whether or not this accusation is founded.

so yes, violence is bad. but please prove to me that RockPolisher is
violent and guilty of what you accuse him of.

Nothing has come up so far that has made me go ‘what a cunt!’ which
is what you’re trying to do.

You’re trying to get me to have an emotional reaction against RockPolisher
by giving me inflated statements, but you are fumbling and avoiding
giving me anything that reads like evidence.

Your belief is not evidence.

Hearsay is not evidence. Even him losing his shit on an occasion in
front of you or getting angry and even him making threats in a fit of
rage – this is not evidence.

I have a massive bullshit detector, and your story made it go right
off. It’s inauthentic. It makes no sense. It’s muddled. It’s emotive.
Its inconsistent You have wiggled out of answering some direct
questions here is one right here

Eg Me: “I suspect the incident that you are discussing was the one
where he came home and found himself dumped and his things touched? i
am pulling stuff out of my memory here, i do not know the details.
Was this the time?”

Why have you avoided answering this question? Do you feel it makes you
look bad, or do you feel it removes weight from the sheer
‘criminality’ of his behaviour?

So this event that you are loath to discuss – was the time that you
and Mrs Speeddatee had violated his personal space, touched his items, packed
his things, and were present for him being dumped and made homeless.
Fucking hell, dude.
If I came home to find someone in my house (who I disliked and who had
pushed my girlfriend to dump me) and helping my things be removed, I’d
threaten them with a bunch of things.
I suspect you would do the same, I doubt you’d NOT get a bit door
slammy and shouty.
Did you actually dump him on her behalf too?
How can you avoid saying what is going on her and then point at him
for behaving badly?

You have skimmed over the bits that make you responsible or culpable
for what happened during the ‘incident’.
Why were you even there?
Why did you stay?
You don’t actually appeared to have witnessed a lot of bad things,
despite saying you did initially.
Do you think that maybe your behaviour contributed to a painful
situation and that to a very large extent you made an error of
judgment over happened?

I am wondering how much of this exchange between you and i is you
trying to get someone to agree that your actions were justified and
that everything you’ve said and done since are justified– if RockPolisher
is evil than all the slander you’ve said against him is justified.
So he must be evil, he must be made to be evil.
We all do that to an extent. I personally know Mrs Speeddate is just a bit
dumb and very unthinking and selfish, and not evil – but I would
certainly think twice about handing her the water if she was on fire,
because she fucked over someone i happen to love.
That is not a death threat. That is hyperbole and should be taken as
such….will you take it as such or will you go screaming to Mrs Speeddate and
say ‘RedGiant has threatened to kill you’????

you’re hammering the point home to anyone who will listen on his
evilness. Cause that makes you good… Otherwise your contacting me
over this makes very little sense.

if you asked the ‘old crowd’ why you feel yourself ‘shunned’ it would
not be because you hang out with Mrs Speeddate, but because you pontificate
and moralise and interfere and fight with them on blogs . actually
they would not tell you if you asked, a bigger group into avoidance of
conflict I have never seen in my life. i know, i tried it. sigh.

“That was what made it so scary, both then and more recently when he
made death threats to ShitforBrains and myself. No matter what happened to
Mr Floyd (and I trust and believe you about all that; I’d appreciate the
same courtesy), that behaviour is inappropriate.”

Death threats, yes, are always inappropriate. I question this,
though….however lets assume he made some death threats. Why did he
make death threats? Or are we pretending they came out of nowhere
again, and there was no behaviour on your part or Shitforbrains’ part to justify
them?
What did he say?

Did you actually believe that he would carry out these actions? Were
they verbal? Are there witnesses? What were the circumstances?
sorry if i dont seem to trust what you’re saying on face value, but
the faces have changed a bit, see, so i need to dig a bit deeper with
things you say.

“Although he has been cold to me personally since, I remember well
(and continue to observe with other people) how friendly he usually
is”

He’s allowed to dislike you after the Ms Oddie incident. Maybe he just
simply hates your guts. i’d say that was totally and utterly fair.

You are allowed to despise people who have wronged you.

Also he seems to be pretty aware the hate you have generated against
him in the Social Group crowd. there would be another reason for him to not
write you a christmas card.

I’d say it’s reasonable that he’s cold towards you.

I recently was the victim of being enemy of the week, by someone who
pushed their own agenda and repeated a bunch of lies about me. This
person I never really want to see again, and she was a good friend
once. she can die in a fire. i dont have to be nice to her. she was
mean to me. you were mean to RockPolisher – this email is you being mean to
RockPolisher.

also come to think of it, you stated that you dont like taking sides
in things that are no concern of yours.
why are you trying to make this a concern of mine, and to take sides?!!!!

“The main problem I have now is that he has chosen to deal with it by
avoiding everyone involved, rather than acknowledging what happened.”

Wait, that’s not your main problem. Your main problem is that I and
others are friends with someone who should be shunned. You have
changed your story.
Stop that.

“Even requesting an apology for whatever we may have done would have
been better. If you do talk to him about it, you’re welcome to assure
him that the lines of communication are not closed from my end”

This has to be a mistake on your part to write this?.

You’re seriously stating that you are admitting that you have ‘done’
something that an apology may be in order for, but it’s up to him to
request it, and he’s at fault for not doing this?
So the burden of this falls to the victim for not standing up for himself?

Can you please clarify if this is what you’re saying here. If so…erm.
Not really, dude.
That’s not the way the universe works.

“I’m not inclined to take sides in things that are other people’s
personal business, but when one side demands I take one, I’m inclined
to take the other.”

This is like my decision to backwards donkey vote in the last
election. Utterly illogical.
You are stating that you don’t take sides except for when you do, and
when you do you make the choice that might be in the minority out
of…whim?
Whim is fine, whimsy is better, but I’m not sure it’s a useful
decision making process…. I donkey voted out of whim. I’m not entirely
sure if I was you I’d be saying this sort of thing to ME though.
Cause frankly I will be bringing this up at every opportunity and
mocking you for it – and you would utterly deserve a darn fine
debunking over this.
cause what it says is that you don’t let logic or your own feelings
or the right or the law dictate to you what side it’s on, just whether
or not you talked to some people about it and they told you what
everyone thought.
Hey Mr Hat – 9 out of ten people say it’s a really bad idea to pound
nails into your thighs, but that guy over there says it’s ok. We say
he’s a douche. Better go borrow a hammer! This is how you make
decisions! Start pounding! I’m sure there will be some people who will
hand you a nail.

“I can see that this may prima facie sound hypocritical given my
statements about RockPolisher, but I’m not rejecting people for maintaining
his friendship, and my sharing the story is no worse than people
explaining that Mrs Speeddate’s “open relationship” was a fib.”

I really love the downplay of adultery and betrayal of marriage vows
and outright lying to all friends and family and husband to
….‘fibbing’. Good work, I can accept that you are on her side and all,
but really dude. Fib. Hah..

Oooh I lit a little bushfire today! Just a little one! Yes that is a
strawman argument, but your statement is absurd and I’m pointing that
out.

Ok in summation of all of this I think this is what’s going on here:

You dislike RockPolisher and you took Ms Oddie’s side against him because
she was your friends

You believed a number of accusations that Ms Oddie made against him and
have repeated them ad hoc. btw I have checked with RockPolisher everything
you have said and much of it he outright denies or says the facts have
been changed in such a way that the incidents are unrecognisable. So
much of it is heresay, or ‘he said/she said’.

You wanted RockPolisher out of the social group and have systematically set
out to destroy his reputation in the younger social crowd. You’ve done a
sterling job at it too I must say, I havnt seen the like since the Mr IP incident.

You have inflated a probably very distressing and probably very loud
event into an incident of horror and domestic violence, and up-played
some incidents to make it sound worse than it was

You meddled during their breakup – and you feel the need to push back
and justify your actions by taking a moral crusade against RockPolisher…. I
don’t think anyone who was pleased or proud of what they had done
would be bothering to have this conversation over and over.

Social groups fracture and form and regroup all the time. There may be
some events that cause this but it’s a very normal process. I am
wondering if you are angry at a facture of a social group and you are
finger pointing to the person you know is not going to fight back

You know, you really do, that RockPolisher is not the person you are
portraying him as. He just is not evil, or violent. He can’t stand up
for himself. He’s a very soft target and you’ve chosen well a victim
who will run away rather than fight. And then you’ve blamed him for
running away.

You have chosen to believe your friend because you like her, and you
cannot admit she might be bullshitting you to get sympathy. (MAYBE YOU
SHOULD CONSIDER THAT SHE MIGHT BE BULLSHITTING YOU TO GET SYMPTHY). On
the heresay side, I hear she told a number of people a number of
different stories, but I cannot tell you what they are. I did not hear
that from RockPolisher, either. That, nothing else, seems legit to me. that
is MY beleif. i have no evidence at this point to back it up.

you’ve therefore bought the tickets to the ‘RockPolisher is evil’ train and
you are making sure you get off and validate your ticket at every
station, because admitting that you were wrong about any of this is
not a position you want to be in

because Mr Floyd is in team RockPolisher, you have sided with Mrs Speeddate over the
Mr Floyd/RockPolisher thing.

Also you don’t have a friendship or a relationship with Mr Floyd and thus
have sided with Mrs Speeddate (this by the way is the only thing that is not
bodgy here, this is understandable)

So.
What are your thoughts?
How much of this message are you going to ignore and avoid answering?
I don’t want emotional responses, I want some facts and some
considered arguments!
:)a

…
18:59
Mr Hat
I didn’t answer that particular question because I forgot. The answer
is that this was a later incident (about a week later) when he was
dumped for good. I showed up later than he did. The police weren’t
called; a relative of Ms Oddie’s showed up to help, and threatened
RockPolisher with his badge.

I resent the accusation of dishonesty. Or side-taking, for that
matter. I have not taken any sides in the matter of the latest
break-up; I feel resented by those who have taken Mr Floyd’s side because
I haven’t explicitly taken his. As for taking Ms Oddie’s side, I’m no
more friends with her now than I am with RockPolisher, due to both of them
effectively cutting me off.

RockPolisher is not evil. He did a very wrong thing and expressed no
remorse; that is enough to make me inclined to share the fact.

RockPolisher’s threats were rather more direct than that. He said “if I
stay in this room I will kill you.” Word for word. And given his lack
of remorse over his previous abuse, I am inclined to take him at his
word, and thankful he didn’t stay in the room.

If he had demanded an apology, we might have some understanding of his
beef with us, which has lasted since well before I told anybody what
he did.

I don’t take sides out of whim. If there is no inherent reason for me
to take a side, but one person is content with me not making an enemy
out of their enemy, and their enemy is not, I will take the side that
does not demand I take it.

I used “fib” not to downplay the wrong but to lighten the overall tone.

I don’t trust Ms Oddie. You may notice that I reserved myself to
sharing what I have observed. I would be interested to hear RockPolisher’s
side…

…
19:05
Mr Hat

Again, most of the abuse was not physical. I’ll admit I call attention
to the violence because so many people think non-physical abuse is no
big deal, and I want people to appreciate that I’m being serious. If
he’s denying it happened at all, though, that is very dodgy.

As for the accusation of “moralising”, I’m not quite sure what you mean.

…
6 January
12:28
RedGiant
So…What I do for a living, is I’m an nalyst. What that means, is
I get a bunch of information – emails/code/documents/frs/brs/logical
specs, etc, and I trawl through them looking for inconsistencies and
things that don’t’ add up. I look for thing that may cause errors, and
I get clarification on them.

Yes I get the irony of my complete lack of ability to spell, here.
I document and earmark the items that are required for further
discussion. I keep track of what I’m doing and how it’s tracking.
After a code drop, I test the crap out of it based on my expectations
from discussions and documents, and I break it in the most interesting
ways I can think of.

I clarify statements and tease out the intent behind them. My main
goal is to have something working as intended with no ambiguity. I
don’t’ mind ambiguity in daily life but it has no place in code build,
and (and here is the reason I’m having this discussion) – it has no
place in this sort of argument.

I feel like you’re one of my developers who has given me a very brief
overview of a piece of functionality but not bothered to clarify any
of the things I need to know.

One of the things I do is create a ‘traceability matrix’ – this is
basically so that I can follow each data point until it’s resolved.
I’m trying to do that here, I’m trying to trace back all the points of
reference and ensure that everything has been addressed and looked at.
You are not doing the same thing however.

You are not answering things. You are answering requests for actual
data with vague statements or, what I say worse, statements about your
feelings (‘I feel offended’ to me is the start of a conversation, not
the conclusion/winning statement of one). I don’t see that in what I
consider to be an attempt to get to the heart of the evidence, that
your feelings on the nature are at all relevant.
Sure they are relevant to YOU but to me they are something I can note,
but I’m still waiting for actual information on the relevant point.
How you feel about whether or not someone might have done something is
utterly irrelevant to what they actually DID. You seem to be offering
up your opinion or feelings as hard evidence. Based on how much you
don’t like it when Christians do this as ‘proof’ of god, I’m at a loss
to account for it, unless you’re doing it on purpose to attempt to
bamboozle me.

This email conversation is very frustrating for me. You are not
responding to a number of data points that require follow up, that I
have made in response to your statements. My options are to try to
work out if you ‘forgot’ (in which case, really? Forgot? But the
points are documented and you can scroll back and reread them!), or if
you are ‘avoiding’ answering or you are ignoring answering them, or
you agree with me and have nothing further to say. Because when you
really DIS agree with me, you seem to have a lot to say!

The way I’m going to assume from now is this: and please respond if
you disagree but don’t respond with a top down sort of thing that is
how offended you are: in the future based on the way you are arguing:
if I say something and you don’t refute or argue it, then you have
accepted my statement as correct, and I have ‘won’ that point.

I’ve won a lot of points so far.

I’m sure you’re good at forming an argument, cause you’re a
Mr Hatosopher of a high level. But you need to learn how to argue
against a person who has a trail of everything you’ve said and can
pull it out and requote you.

I am wondering how much you are into persuasion based on feelings,
not actual arguments based on facts . You’re trying to persuade me
that you are right a lot here based on a premise and a moral statement
(that RockPolisher should be shunned because he did something bad). I’ve
said before : there are two parts to this argument. One is that
abusers are bad, which is not in doubt. But I’m still not seeing any
evidence at all that RockPolisher as an ‘abuser’. Non random anger and fury
in during a time of great emotional stress is not the same as being an
abuser, something you cannot accept it seems.

Perhaps the main problem here is that you see an emotional persuasion
as a relevant argument tool, and I see a displaying of facts and a
discussion of them, as a relevant argument tool. I utterly dismiss
your logic as relevant unless you remove the ambiguity and describe
what actually happened. I think you seem to be thinking that the
relevant facts of what happened were your REACTIONS to things. Which
to me, create a data point to be considered, but by no means are the
final statement.

If this email conversation was a piece of code, it would not be going
into the next release cause your arguments are flawed and full of
holes. I’d say it has a few sev one defects and the code build is not
fit for purpose. If I created a list of defects around the statements
you have not followed up on, it would be a long list.
Anyhoo…some specifics for your last reply:

On Abuse
1. “I am interested, however, in your opinion about the double
standard that appears to be applied by some in that crowd, where a
cheater is shunned but a violent abuser is welcomed as though nothing
had happened “I was a direct witness to one incident of domestic
violence and many of verbal abuse”
Who is the violent abuser? i’m not sure who you are talking about.
RockPolisher”
2. “I believe there was more violence”
3.” but he did attempt to restrain her when she was trying to leave
him due to that abuse (a police badge made him stop) and left
bruises.”
And your statement:
“Again, most of the abuse was not physical. I’ll admit I call
attention to the violence because so many people think non-physical
abuse is no big deal”

So your opening statement WAS that RockPolisher was a violent abuser.

This you later conceded to emotional abuser – but you only cited
incidents in which some really awful things were happening TO RockPolisher
at a point in time eg during the violation of his personal space by a
third party during an emotional traumatic incident.
That’s not emotional abuse, Mr Hat. That’s being traumatised during a
horrible breakup and fighting with your girlfriend.
Restraint too, is not physical abuse. it is an infringement on
someone’s rights to leave but it is not abuse. this word you use. I
don’t think it means what you think it means. I have left bruises on
someone before, at work, who I was struggling to restrain during an
arrest. I did not abuse that person. I held them down while they
thrashed. Now, under the authorised act I was authorised to do such a
thing, and RockPolisher was not. But it’s not abuse. go find another word
for it.

On honest arguments:
“I resent the accusation of dishonesty.”
I am totally sure you do. i would too. That is not the point. This is
what I mean by you have an emotional reaction/statement to something
but then you don’t go into why I should be persuaded that it’s any
different.

How deserved is this accusation? I think it’s very well deserved.
you’ve attempted to manipulate me by implication and suggestion and
statements that you cannot back up under further analysis. Or that
fall apart when I dig into them . the police thing, for example. The
implication were that the police were called, and I called you on that
and it was only a few emails in that some facts came out. That is not
how to argue with me, I think it’s a rubbish way to do things. That’s
not you being honest, at least not initially, until pressed. When
drilled down you come out with the details that don’t back up your
statements. An example:

technically you did not say ‘physical domestic abuse’ in your first
statement, but since your next statement was ‘AND many of verbal
abuse’ – you defiantly implied non verbal abuse. which any reasonable
person reading your message would say ‘this means he hit her’.

The implication of ‘the police badge’ incident also, implies that the
police were called on the scene of an incident. You are deliberately
obscuring the facts and not giving the full information so that it
makes it look worse than it is until it’s ferreted and worried and
teased out. I don’t call that entirely open or honest.
You also have done the clever email trick of this:
I say ‘is this the thing where you packed RockPolishers stuff up for him’
You didn’t answer.
I re-asked the question
You answered with ‘I forgot to answer that’ and you STILL DON”T
DISCUSS IT. This is an argument to try and make me think you answered
the point but not actually answering the point. I see through this
stuff. You’ve managed to wiggle out of a discussion of your own
involvement in the break up incident, consistently, for the entire
series of discussion.
Well I think your behaviour was unacceptable during that time and I
think you helped to cause a lot of distress to RockPolisher and you owe him
an apology and you owe it to your self that you were not the good guy
here.
But you will refuse to answer this point too cause it makes you uncomfortable.

On side taking:
“ Or side-taking, for that matter. I have not taken any sides in the
matter of the latest break-up;”
I’m sure that is true that you have not ‘taken sides’ by making a
fight out of it – but your friend is Mrs Speeddate and you are staying friends
with Mrs Speeddate. Sinc you were never friends with Mr Floyd it’s unreasonable to
expect you were friends with him. Taking sides meaning in my
description : who you give your support to when there is a he said/she
said thing. You’ve chosen to give your support/friendship to Mrs Speeddate.
That is what I mean but this.

“I don’t take sides out of whim. If there is no inherent reason for
me to take a side, but one person is content with me not making an
enemy out of their enemy, and their enemy is not, I will take the side
that does not demand I take it.”
“I’m not inclined to take sides in things that are other people’s
personal business”

So Ms Oddie and RockPolisher’s breakup was not their personal business?
Come on, be consistent. You flip around like a pancake and you think
I’m not going to see it? You’re all over the shop.
You got involved in that initially somehow and you thought it was
reasonable to pack someone’s things in their own house, which meant you
must have agreed that she had a case against RockPolisher.
That’s a side taking step.

That is also taking a moral stance. I would say that was pretty self
righteous behaviour too.

“I can see that this may prima facie sound hypocritical given my
statements about RockPolisher, but I’m not rejecting people for maintaining
his friendship”
Well you are trying to persuade other people for maintaining his
friendship. You contacted me totally out of the blue and told me a
bunch of pork pies to persuade me that RockPolisher is evil. So you’re not
REJECTING me but you are TRYING TO MAKE ME PICK A SIDE AGAINST
ROCKPOLISHER.
You have also (and refused to comment and respond to this) done a
hatchet job on his reputation in young Social group. That is TRYING TO MAKE
PEOPLE PICK SIDES AGAINST ROCKPOLISHER AND WITH YOU.

On fibbing
“I used “fib” not to downplay the wrong but to lighten the overall tone.”
Ok then. RockPolisher got stompy while being dumped. You should say that to people.

On the totally bizarre requirement for RockPolisher to request an apology:
“RockPolisher is not evil. He did a very wrong thing and expressed no
remorse; that is enough to make me inclined to share the fact.”
This is a good example of what I mean by moralising. You’ve made a
judgment call on ‘wrong’ and then a judgment call on following up his
behaviour, and therefore you’ve put on the badge of the self appointed
moral police, and gone and told everyone he’s a violent abuser.
“The main problem I have now is that he has chosen to deal with it by
avoiding everyone involved”

You say that, but it’s again a moral call based on what you want to
happen, with no understanding of how it works.
“RockPolisher’s threats were rather more direct than that. He said “if I
stay in this room I will kill you.” Word for word. And given his lack
of remorse over his previous abuse, I am inclined to take him at his
word, and thankful he didn’t stay in the room.”

Here’s a statement: if I was RockPolisher, and you had done to me what you
did to RockPolisher, I’d have not threatened to kill you. I’d have walked
over and punched you as hard as I could in the nose, as often as I
could, to break it as hard as I could. And I wold have accepted as a
consequence a charge of assault. It would have been worth it. I would
have told you to get out or I would kill you. I would have been
emotionally raw and traumatised and I may even have meant to kill you
at that point. I would want to hurt you as the author of my pain due
to your meddling

The fact that RockPolisher did none of those things, makes him way more in
control of his actions than I would have been of mine.
I have utterly no issue with the fact that RockPolisher lost his shit.
Clearly you do. There is a point of contention between us.
Losing ones’ shit in an emotionally upsetting time is not the same as
being a domestic abuser. There is a point of contention between us.

You did the wrong, thing, not RockPolisher.

“If he had demanded an apology, we might have some understanding of
his beef with us, which has lasted since well before I told anybody
what he did”
Really.
You have total understanding of his beef.
You know you meddled and interfered.
You know he thinks you’re an utter cunt and never wants to talk to you again
This is his choice, you don’t’ seem to get that. I don’t think he
wants an apology from you, because it would not be sincere. It would
be a way you could continue the beef you have with him.
You seem to think you do owe him an apology. WHAT DO YOU OWE HIM AN
APOLOGY FOR Mr Hat, you have not yet come out and said it.

I would suggest that if you are well grounded and moral, then the
responsibility would be on the person who owes the apology to go the
person and actually apologise. You can do this years later. MrPill did it
to Ms Bucket, five years after they had a breakup, he apologised to her
for what a tool he was during their relationship. She appreciated it.
She didn’t’ ask him to apologise to her cause no rational human would
think this is a reasonable thing to do.
Yes, I just said you were not a rational human for thinking that
RockPolisher somehow needs to crawl to you for you to apologise to him.

“I didn’t answer that particular question because I forgot”
There’s a really interesting thing with having these discussions over
the internet, and that is ‘you can scroll through and see what you’ve
said’. It’s all very traceable. You can go and look and answer points.
it’s very clever like that. i am using word to do word searches and
compose my replies to you. if i had more time i would be actually
creating a spreadsheet traceability matrix and sending you that bu ti
suspect it would be wasted time cause i dont think you’d join in.

…have I covered off why I think you moralise yet enough? Cause you make
value judgments on peoples behaviour (which we all do) but then you
ACT on those judgments to the detriment of other people. You meddled
in a breakup. You have destroyed RockPolisher’s reputation in young social group.
You have downplayed Mrs Speeddate’s actions and excuse that by saying its none
of your business. You contacted me out of the blue over what in
essence boils down to an emotional problem you have with RockPolisher and
have tried to persuade me that it’s a real issue.
If you want more I can probably ask around to see what other people
come up with…

…
6 January
21:00
Mr Hat

I didn’t think this was a matter of “winning points”. I thought this
was a civilised conversation between friends, not a professional
interrogation. An argument perhaps, insofar as we disagree, but I’m
not even sure we really do. Friends leave work at work, and don’t try
to win points over each other in anything more important than a game.
You don’t believe me about RockPolisher, for your own reasons, and I don’t
intend to press you on the matter. But I have not changed my story, as
you also seem to think. There was emotional abuse; there was violence
also. Most instances of domestic abuse where violence is involved are
primarily non-violent. The police were not called because A,
Ms Oddie’s relative was already there, and B, she decided not to call
them. I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that many people in such a
situation elect not to involve the police.

I’m not Team Mrs Speeddate (or Team Ms Oddie, for that matter), as you seem to
have assumed, except insofar as I have been cold-shouldered by people
who are Mr Floyd’s friends for having the nerve to not cut her off
myself. This is exactly the sort of problem I’ve described: people are
assumed to be Team Mrs Speeddate solely because they have not exclusively
declared for Team Mr Floyd, and thence ostracised.

Nor do I believe that I have wronged RockPolisher, just as you have not
wronged Mrs Speeddate by spreading the truth about her infidelity. The reason
I think his requesting an apology would be a good step is because he
clearly thinks I have wronged him, and knowing what he thinks I’ve
done (eg. if he thinks I helped Ms Oddie pack his things when she
dumped him the first time, something I was not even present for and
expressed my disapproval of after the fact) would help resolve things.

If you want to make an unfriendly argument over this, I’m out. If you
need to clarify anything, I’ll read. But I don’t think there’s much
more that needs to be said here. I’m not out to convince you of
anything now, much less score points.

…
7 January
16:42
RedGiant
I guess we agree to disagree and also agree that on some things we are agreed.
do you agree?
23:33
Mr Hat
Thanks for blindly trusting gossip about me, which is far less
substantial than the claims against RockPolisher for which you continually
shifted the goalposts in your demand for evidence. I honestly expected
much better from you.
…
Monday
08:48
RedGiant

Terribly sorry to have let you down.

…
Today
19:30

Mr Hat
Following reflection today over the shitstorm seen on my page
yesterday, I do have more to say. I’m posting this publicly, but I’m
also PMing certain people I specifically want to read this. This goes
for Mrs Hat as well.

I apologise unreservedly for the hurt I have caused, directly and
indirectly, to any and all concerned. Some seem to think I’m still
calling for a certain person to be ostracised, as I did years ago:
I’ve apologised for that before, but I do so again. I also apologise
for inviting the airing of people’s private business, for being
inappropriately vague, and for being incompletely informed.

I hope there need be no more bad blood over this. None of you are bad
people and I would far rather reconcile than leave things hostile.