[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

It doesn't matter what charities you claim to support, it has no relevance to the topic at hand or what I said."

^ What a frankly ludicrous statement.

Here are your OWN words from a previous response to one of my posts: "That's ridiculous, allowing homeless people to use the bathroom is not a political issue, especially not a partisan one. It's an issue of empathy.

So when it suits your purpose in one response, this issue is about 'Empathy', and yet in this response, you claim that my supporting Charities has NO RELEVANCE to EMPATHY.

Perhaps you should invest in some simple research into the psychology of Charity Donating before uttering ludicrous statements on a forum.

Read up on Bekkers and Wiepking or Snyder and Clary where you will CLEARLY learn that EMPATHY is among other motivations for donating to Charity.

You have NO knowledge at all of whether I have ever been homeless or not during my long life so you cannot KNOW whether I have 'Empathy' or not for the 'Homeless' in this matter.

I HAVE been homeless when I lost EVERYTHING I had ever worked for during the Property Crash of 2007 and I had to work 18 hour days 7 days a week to 'claw my way' upright' again over a decade.

So clearly your statement above that my donating to charity "has no relevance to the topic at hand or what I said." is utter rubbish.

I donate because I have empathy, and empathy - in your own words - is what this topic is about.

"Much of your rambling in this post has nothing to do with the topic at hand so I'm not entertaining it,"

^ The above is a mere thinly disguised insult.

I do NOT ramble in my posts, far from it, because EVERY sentence is carefully crafted with PURPOSE.

Your claim that my post "has nothing to do with the topic at hand" has already been rebutted above and you are not "entertaining it" because you have NO genuine rebuttal.

I am still awaiting civil responses to several questions which I have asked of you in an array of debates that we have been involved in, so perhaps you ate not "entertaining" those either.

"this is not a political issue... "

^ The above from you is frankly as ludicrous as the earlier from you.

Of COURSE, it is a "Political Issue".

Starbucks ejected two customers whom it said were NOT patronising its establishment and yet were refusing to leave; akin to Toysoldier ejecting someone from his shop for not betting or any Nightclub ejecting someone for anyone of a hundred breaches of 'House Rules' - SUCH is the rights of ANY establishment which has rules - although a TOTAL NON EVENT and unnewsworthy in any rational man's language.

EXCEPT for ONE FACT: the non-patrons involved were BLACK.

PURE AND SIMPLE and HONEST TRUTH.

Had they been WHITE, this 'incident' would NOT have made one-tenth of a column in the LOCAL Free Press 'rag'.

However, the fact that they were black raised this non-event and made it a POLITICAL ISSUE from the very instant that a Left-liberal Keyboard Warrior seized on it for his own agenda and it 'snowballed' out of all proportion to its illogical culmination.

It is 'POLITICAL' and THAT is THE only reason why we are discussing it now on here - it has become yet one more political football to be kicked around by Lefties and Righties in the hopes of SCORING a goal.

THAT is why you are posting with barely concealed anger and why I am responding to you; because from inception to conclusion to aftermath, this issue is CLEARLY political. -.

"and your decision to make this about Asylum seekers is baffling and quite frankly desperate, you are trying to make a point by comparing apples and oranges."

^ The above is disgusting and SHAMELESSLY blatant MISREPRESENTATION clearly affirming that YOU are the 'desperate' one here.

NOWHERE in my post did I EVER compare Asylum Seekers to the Homeless who are at the core of this issue.

I used a simile only in regards to YOUR reluctance to answer questions from me on other threads which pertained to the debate we were SPECIFICALLY having on THAT thread topic at the time.

Here is what I wrote:

"Finally - give me a TRUTHFUL answer to this simple question:

You are sitting at home eating your dinner when there is a knock on the door.

You answer it to find 3 shabbily-dressed - obviously - homeless drunks who are propping each other up outside your door.

One asks if they can use your toilet as there isn't a public loo nearby and they are all bursting to go.

Would you greet them and invite them in?

When I have asked a similar question on here - more than once - about whether certain members would take in 'Asylum Seekers' and let them live and sleep in their homes, I NEVER received an answer.

So here's looking forward to yours."

I think that the truth is plain to see for any rational, non-partisan impartial reader.

"Whether Starbucks allows homeless people to use their facilities or not is not politically motivated no matter how much you reach for it to be so. It's a matter of empathy and giving a couple of quid to Charity every month doesn't matter one bit, it does not make your opinion anymore valid."

^ I am NOT the one who is so desperately 'reaching' - YOU ARE.

As already detailed earlier above; this issue is POLITICAL - it is a minor non-event which has been inflated to be POLITICAL, but I am not letting politics dictate my contributions to this thread, I am just a long-lived, experience-rich, mature businessman who is speaking the truth as he sees it.

And the truth as I see it is echoed by other highly intelligent members - as I predicted that it would - as this excerpt from my post attests:

"I think that Toysoldier can illuminate us all here about any conflict between 'empathy' and the reality of allowing anyone but patrons to use the toilets in his shop.

EVERY bookies which I have been in now keep the toilets LOCKED and customers have to ask the staff for the key.

As a result, their toilets are much more hygienic and clean than they were when anyone could walk in from the streets and use them - and bear in mind that a lot of society's 'unfortunates' frequent high street bookies and ARE actually 'patrons'."

One only has to read Toysoldier's post to see that HIS DIRECT EXPERIENCE and opinion coincides with mine.

All in my opinion of course.