hutchinsfairy wrote:The problem is that there is no good way to deal with people whose coping strategies are so woefully inadequate that they are compelled to find release siphoning their impotent bitterness onto strangers.
Is this a self-referencing example? It's one of my favourite forms of entertainment: watching people with low self-awareness bitterly denounce someone else's character for having denounced theirs, but imagining that it's different because "he started it!". In reality, you just declared that someone (me, in this case) is somehow fundamentally broken as a human being... because you feel I was rude to you. Short of calling for my entire bloodline to be rounded up and put into a death camp it's pretty much the most over-the-top place you can go over a forum dispute.
hutchinsfairy wrote:Once you realise that the sole purpose of the posts is to manufacture conflict then if follows that their supposed content is largely irrelevant, even to the person posting them.
..and right here you try to dismiss the content of posts because of their presentation, something you yourself claimed was typically the realm of someone who feels "threatened".
What you're engaging in is the typical "coping strategy" of someone who feels socially marginalized but feels they are clearly worthy of greater respect. You see it in bullied middle-school children, too... the claims that their bully is only bullying them because the bully comes from a broken home, or the belief that the bully will grow up to amount to nothing while the bullied child will be the CEO of a fortune 500 company, etc etc.
In reality those bullies often come from loving environments, and they're no less likely to succeed than anyone else... in fact, the assertiveness and confidence often works in their favour. The mistake hinges on what psychology terms the "just-world hypothesis" or what is more commonly referred to as "karma" (the common use being different from the actual origin of the term). Most adults are fully aware that what goes around rarely comes around.. people don't get what they "deserve" (positive or negative).. and bad things happen to good people as often as good things happen to bad people.
Personally, I don't mind people being aggressive or rude or insulting to me - those aren't things that I find inherently offensive (with some exceptions) because they're quirks of personality. What bothers me is hypocrisy, disingenuity, and dishonesty - things that reduce the amount of truth in the world. I'm also annoyed by intellectual laziness because it is the root of 90% of the stupidity in human history. People aren't inherently stupid, they're just too damned lazy to be smart most of the time... and find it easier to make excuses for being lazy.
So, believe whatever you want if it helps ease your cognitive dissonance, but be aware (or don't) that your hypocrisy is symptomatic of your not knowing yourself very well. I advise you to get to know yourself.. not who you imagine yourself to be, but who your actions prove you to be. If you find you don't like that person then change it, or adjust your worldview to match who you really are, and don't hold everyone else to higher standards than you're willing to hold yourself.