First

People who attempt to privilege their point of view due to an accident of birth are not people I will engange with.

Magical thinking means their arguments don’t have to hold water, they’re just right because their privilege makes them right.

This is ridiculous.

If the only way you can defend your position is to reach for some magic thing that makes you more special than everyone else then you don’t have a position, you’re expecting me to believe the same stuff you do, at least by proxy. Even when this is stuff I might consider to be self-serving nonsense.

You don’t get a free ride from me.

If you can’t defend your views with facts and reason (and this includes not making things up or only telling part of the story) then I’m not interested. Why should I be? You’re doing something contemptible.

Second

We have a world where certain countries continually claim to be exceptional and above the rules of civilisation. They all have their apologists, but the thing is:

• Using chemical weapons is a war crime
• Using weapons like phosphorous is a war crime
• Shooting children in the back is a war crime
• Shooting people offering medical assistance is a war crime
• Taking and colonising other people’s homes is a war crime
• Hanging people you don’t like is a crime
• Destroying or diverting civilian sources of water is a war crime
• Setting dogs on children is a crime
• Torture is a war crime
• Summarily executing people by indiscriminately drone bombing is a war crime – they should stand trial if they’ve done anything (and stop killing kids and blowing up weddings for good measure)

Some of these crimes have been committed by the country I live in, some by its allies, some by people who are seen as the enemy du jour. They are all wrong, and at the moment we live in a vile world where people can get away with doing these things.

It makes no difference. These things are indefensible and a source of shame. If you start defending the indefensible, again claiming some kind of privilege, the same contempt applies and I will not engage with you.

I’m not going to engage with your cognitive dissonance, you need to have a long hard think about what you stand for. As the old saying goes if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. Maybe you fell. But it’s not my problem.

So if someone tries to engage with me in this manner, in what I consider bad faith, and arrogant bad faith at that, I will withdraw. My own health is more important than a fool’s.