It’s pretty hard to ‘prove’ an opinion, which involves a personal choice as to what the person feels is most important. People select facts they feel are important to form their opinion. They may discount or ignore other facts, or may explain that they felt those particular facts were irrelevant, etc.
Often, the answer to ‘but you are ignoring XYZ’ is, ‘yes, I know, because i don’t consider XYZ to be important’. That’s a judgement call. Someone else thinks XYZ is an important part of the discussion? Vive la difference.
In my case, i often do see no point in discussing something in public when someone is being so antagonistic, anyone who is really interested in a discussion instead of an attack can PM me - IF they really are interested in having a sensible discussion.
And actually, I think that’s a very natural response and one that is legit and justified. You don’t - well what dy’a know, since it’s you doing the attacking, of course you think you’re right. Big surprise.
On this thread, the main attack seems to be that I have no right to say people shouldn’t speculate without more facts, because no one was speculating on this thread.
But my comment wasn’t directed at this thread, and I ddin’t SAY it was being done on this thread. I was making a much more general comment.
And I think I have a right to say it, actually, and that it’s not codswallop at all.
[B][I]Example:
“I think people believe it is an unfortunate mishap.” (J-Lu, re Mythilus).[/I][/B]
Actually, I don’t agree with that. I have just heard far too many opinions that don’t follow that line. J-Lu, maybe you think all the people saying anything else have ‘unimportant opinions’ or that, ‘if they read the reports, they wouldn’t think that way. They think that way because they aren’t as well informed and experienced as I am. Therefore, ‘people’ believe it’s just a mistake, because anyone saying something other than my opinion doesn’t count’.
That’s not the kind of reasoning I believe in. What I believe in is that 'people’s responses to this situation are all over the map. Their feelings about it are highly affected by their values and their experiences, which are all very different.
Yeah, at first I thought people would all agree, too. But then my alarm clock went off, and that feeling stopped.
The treatment on other bb’s doesn’t indicate exactly all people believe that, neither do the conversations I hear or anythign else, indicate that there is a unified ‘people’ that all believe that. I sort of WISH people believed that, but that is what it is - wishful thinking.
I’ve asked others how the European response sounds, and I can tell you alot of the responses were extremely not-what-you-want-to-hear and not saying it was a mistake…and even the responses in the USA are not at all uniform, and ‘people’ looks to me, to be a very fragmented, opinionated group. I’ve heard quite a few people respond with, ‘felbinac hell, i want to know how in the sam hill can a horse have a heart arhythmia and then go do an Olympic GP test, how is that fair to the horse, how is that even allowed’, and plenty of uglier stuff, in fact.
There are people here, actually, who have suggested the horse was deliberately given felbinac by someone, and/or that that was connected to a problem with his shoeing reported on in June. And yes, I think people are plenty clever enough to say, ‘well there was that shoeing thing in june’ and let OTHERS connect the dots, and say, ‘but i never said that!’ if it turns out that concept later turns out to be unpopular.
There are also people here who have suggested that there wasn’t any felbinac in the horse at all, and that the lab messed up, deliberately or not deliberately, Chinese sabotage, etc.
I did one post where I tried to summarize all the possibilities people were discussing - it was rather long, and I didn’t even include all the ‘it’s all the FEI’s fault, their drug rules are stupid’ stuff.
