Between blotch and blok

people who strike appalling attitudes for the sake of causing dissent just for the sake of "fooling people online" just annoy me

No, I'm not a troll. I'm not playing devil's advocate: I'm arguing for what I believe. And insofar as that constitutes deliberately making comments which offend you personally, then yes, I am doing it: because I happen to be in an excellent position to present you with something you obviously haven't considered before, namely the fact that there are people out there who disagree with you completely and are also rational, well-adjusted, intelligent adults as opposed to bigoted morons. The fact that it's winding you up - well, I can't deny I find that funny, but not out of sadism: it demonstrates that you really can't cope with the existence of well-thought-out opinions that oppose yours, and the humour lies in the fact that in spite of that you also appear to be wanting to go about persuading other people you're right. You just can't do that simply by informing them they're wrong; if you want to get people who totally disagree with you to take up your beliefs, first you have to be able to stretch your mind round their beliefs enough to find a pathway between the two.

And that really is the last I'm saying in this argument: there are other things I should be doing.