catherine96821:
I'm not going say that I'm sorry if I argue my point of view as intelligently as I can. I do welcome other points of view and try to be very civil with my answers. The fairly in depth discussion I have held with Mr X for instance is a good example. If I see weaknesses in an argument though I will highlight them, and offer counter-argument that is as strong as I can make. Isn't this just the nature of debate? Sometimes I will also accept another's point of view while reserving the right to disagree with it. This does not mean that I think I'm right and the other is wrong - that can be too absolute and impossible to judge without enough facts. Sometimes it simply remains different opinions. While it is certainly a Moderators responsibility to remain polite and civil, it doesn't mean we may not argue our own points of view. The funny thing is, that in the original debate I actually found your simple and very honest opinions to be one of the most compelling arguments on that side of the debate. This was why I made a great effort to tell you I didn't include you among those making the kind of statements that I considered to amount to racism - and I also didn't attack your position. I know you feel strongly about this issue and I respect that. I was rather surprised yesterday when I read your recent posts here and I felt that you were probably misunderstanding my intent.catherine96821:
First of all I can only say that I was completely unaware of this incident until yesterday. Although I watch the BBC World service news every day via satellite there have been no reports of it. If indeed it was a deliberate attempt to harm someone then I would abhor it. There does seem to be some questions concerning the claim though if I read some of the other posts above. If we didn't already guess for ourselves, Mr X (who has some experience I believe) has also highlighted how dangerous it is to do what Greenpeace does. The fact is that for whatever higher reason, they are trying to interfere with large ships that are busy trying to do something they are legally entitled to do. That someone might get hurt is probably a foregone conclusion but as it is completely the choice of Greenpeace to be there doing this, it's hard to feel sympathy if there are accidents. However, like I said (and kompressor mentioned above) history has shown that Greenpeace is not above twisting real events to suit their own purposes and in this case I simply don't know what happened. The coral is to me something rather different. I take a very dim view of wanton unnecessary destruction done in a protected marine park simply to have a photo saying: "I was here first,,,na, na, ni, na,na" (which seems to be a reasonable translation of what was written). If the Japanese were simply chasing whales to carve their names in the beasts flanks and take similar pictures I would be even more incensed.catherine96821:
