But he didn't stand his ground. He neither defended his position by explaining what he actually meant nor took responsibility for it - until after repeatedly having his own words brought back to him, when he did finally express regret for the analogy. Finally, at the very end, he gave a kind of half-baked explanation which didn't actually relate to anything he'd said before and was quite different from the "rhetoric" explanation you gave (which he thanked you for). In fact, every time we talked, he changed his explanation of what he was trying to say.

I'm frankly quite surprised at you Penguin. You generally have little tolerance for someone expressing victimhood, and yet, here we are with you not only tolerating but defending someone who has repeatedly deflected all responsibility for his words and actions onto others - crying victimhood from stem to stern and particularly going after me for not giving him a free pass. He wrote long diatribes about how other people have the responsibility to not take his words at face value, but to tease out from him what he really intended to mean. He says things like "Don't conflate someone else's words to mean something they didn't mean" as if I'm a bad actor purposely out to victimize him. 🤷‍♀️ How do I know what he meant other than by his words and his actions. Am I supposed to read his mind and/or treat him like an overly protective kindergarten teacher? Pfft!! Why are you all of a sudden acting like that is reasonable?

Say what you mean, and if someone misunderstands what you mean, then clarify - don't go on repeated long diatribes about how the other person (and the platform/society) are horrible because they misunderstood you. Don't constantly change your story about what happened - take responsibility for yourself. That's what I would expect the Penguin that I know to support.

And when I tried to "soften" the situation by noting that it can be difficult for people who don't already have a base of trust to communicate - particularly in writing - he still insisted that he has much less responsibility to be clear than the other people, the listeners, do to try to read his mind, give him the benefit of the doubt, etc. And you're going to support that? Hmm.... interesting indeed.

Edit: In addition — something cannot be the pinnacle example of a category unless it is indeed a part of that category. Ergo, logically, saying that murdering King was the pinnacle example of cancel culture indicates a belief that King’s murder by a white supremacist was really just another example of cancel culture. He then goes on to expound upon that exact idea for several more sentences. Saying that this isn’t meant literally, but just rhetorically is verbal gymnastics. There is no actual difference between the two. He literally said that King was canceled. Where is the “rhetorical” element in that?

For example, what does this even mean that you said? “designed to suggest that death is the ultimate way of shutting people up; not a direct parallel with murder…” OK, you’ve just essentially said, “killing someone is the ultimate way to shut them up, but don’t equate that with murder.” 🤷‍♀️

For someone who deals in words and language for a living, I’d expect a greater level of precision. Honestly…