"Standards" Dropping

Over on a lawyer's blog near you, metal detectorist Stoutstandards comes to the succour of UK benefit scroungers with an attack on a London businessman of Cypriot origin who had criticised them. According to him, Kyri "shows his colors and bent in this recent post" (scil. comment).  The victim of this outburst replies that "when people are claiming disability benefits and claim they are unfit for work but are out metal detecting all day it irks". He also points out that it is a matter of record that there are a number of metal detectorists who have made significant finds were on benefits when they did so, which raises a number of questions. He is also disappointed by the level of comments on this moderated blog, pointing out to "Stout Standards":

your last 3 contributions to this blog have been personal attacks [...]  and have contributed nothing to the debate. Anyone logging in for the first time will be wondering if it isn't 11 year olds writing the comments.

My thought exactly, sometimes with metal detectorists in full flow, it really is difficult to tell the difference. The trouble this, this is not happening on a lowbrow metal detectorist chat list, but the professional blog of a Washington lawyer who obviously is not a bit concerned with upholding standards in the debate, just as long as it gets his coiney mates off the hook when faced with an awkward question (my discussion of the Scout Merit badge with Mr Sayles continued offline, ending disappointingly with a comment from him little better than that you'd expect from a socially-inept fourteen-year old). None of this is what the rest of us consider an "intelligent conversation". Mr Tompa's sponsors are wasting their money if they think any of that sort of exchange will influence public opinion. Also it's ironic isn't it that the firm within the framework of which Mr Tompa campaigns in reality is mostly concerned with employment law, yet here we see him posting comments in favour of dole scroungers.