Why are the few remaining McCann Supporters getting more viscious and abusive as the days go by?

Question

This is NOT a dig at the McCanns. Its a question about the McCann supporters who are getting more abusive to those who don't agree with them as the days go by. Anti McCanns are getting attacked, dismissed, reviled and even getting their questions reported and deleted by the supporters.

Is this a bit like people who begin to shout and swear when they start to run out of ideas in a sensible debate?

Galpal - I honestly respect your answer. Thank you.

However, Clare N calls us clueless, the lovely Katie calls us wankers, and just look at Candi K's answer. I rest my case.

angela f - would you like to read that part of the question again that says I'm not having a dig at the McCanns??

Wildamberhoney: thanks too for your reasoned answer. I take your points on board.

angiemarr: In any debate one is forced to generalise to a degree, obviously whilst remaining aware that there are exceptions that prove the rule. I'm really talking trends here. I also agree that there are one or two Anti McCanns that have said some pretty base things about the McCanns and their supporters too. But when people get personal vendettas against them such as babysham, as well as myself then that's a step too far.

Answer 1

I admit to becoming more defensive in support of the McCanns, but the reason is not that I have run out of reasons to support them but that my defense has become stronger in retaliation to the attacks on them that have become stronger.

I am honestly shocked by how nasty some of the comments about the McCanns have been. They made a stupid mistake, but they're paying for it, and while people don't agree with how they handle their grief or their media attention, the fact is everyone handles their grief differently and if the media attention will bring back their little girl of course they're going to basque in it.

And it is not the 'Anti McCanns' that are getting attacked and dismissed, those who support the McCanns are a minority and are getting slated, you just have to look at all the thumbs down I'll get for this answer and the other answers I've given in which I've shown compassion for the McCanns to see that. By the way I've never reported a question and I completely respect your point of view, just because I don't agree with it that doesn't mean I don't respect it.

By the way, bugaboo, my views on the situation would be no different if the McCanns were working class. I study social science in university and I don't believe in social hierarchy.

Answer 2

Any style of abuse or profanity isn't proper no count if from the McCann sympathisers (i do no longer see all of us helping the McCanns in leaving their toddlers unattended) or from the anti-McCanns. i think of all of us is lashing out through fact the finished problem has somewhat touched us all. CT, you will do properly to appreciate that a number of the anti-McCanns have additionally been extremely impolite & downright insulting exceedingly commonly. BTW, i'm begining to believe what i examine sometime in the past that a thumbs up relies upon on conformity & no longer on content textile. regardless of by no ability ever utilising profanity or maybe being overly blunt, i've got been reported & hidden consistently, merely b'cos i selection from you anti-McCanns. Am as ill & uninterested in this strategies-set besides...healthful debate, huh?

Answer 3

Hi. I thoroughly agree that abuse is no way to get any point across, if anything it detracts from the point one is trying to make. Sending abusive emails is just disgusting and totally wrong. Still, it's an unfair generalisation to suggest that only 'McCann supporters'' do this. Galpal summed it all up very well, I thought.

There have been loads of posts from people who seem to believe that anyone not baying for the McCanns' blood is stupid/over-emotional/ a moron, etc etc... if those are not personal attacks, then what is?! The fact of the matter is that there's been abuse from all factions of this 'debate'.

How about some of the answers above?

"Their minds are not open to debate and why should they be, they are the product of a modern British education."
What a sweeping statement. Here's my genuine question: are you referring to the abusive supporters like Candi K? Or do you simply lump all people who don't agree with you into the same category as 'McCann supporters'? If the latter is true, that's hardly open-minded, is it? Pot and kettle. (No disrespect intended to you Rosie, but do you see what I mean by this?) Plus, people who went to school in the UK are ALL products of the British education system, regardless of their opinion, so that is illogical and irrelevant.

Oh, and what do you make of the comment above, that reads:
"how long before they start turning into terrorists"? How very open-minded. That was by one of the people who agrees with you, not a so-called ''McCann supporter". Hang on... you're saying that you don't agree with what he says? Therefore you're not all thinking alike? Why does that apply to you and not to those who do admit to feeling compassion for the McCanns?

"I also think that if you put forward reasoned arguments, you run less of a risk of getting flamed." One would hope so... however I've seen people get pilloried, sworn at and called names after offering perfectly sensible and civil arguments... this applies to people of all stances.

"McCann comrades". There's a real misuse of a word. Just because someone has sympathy for someone's plight (even though I agree with you that it was largely self-created in the McCann case), that does not mean they support everything the McCanns are doing or approve of their actions.

Just to make my own position clear - I think the McCanns behaved in a stupid fashion, and I find what they're doing now strange and disturbing. However, I don't think there can be much worse punishment than losing your child... and many people have refused to even consider that viewpoint, dismissing it completely. Rather like this post, I suspect.

I respect you, whether I agree or not.

Answer 4

well I wish I could cut and paste the e-mails I was sent the other day from McCann followers. They actually threatened harm to my children so that I would 'know what it's like'. Another one (or maybe the same one with many ID's) said that my children had better watch out because it would be easy for them to just 'disappear' and these e-mails were peppered with the f word as well as other threats made to myself.
And these people are apparently the ones with 'a heart' or 'compassion'. Hypocrites more like. To defend one dysfunctional set of parents you issue threats to those that do the best they can to take care of their children

Answer 5

...because they are wrong, they are fighting a losing battle, they know it and they are just too stubborn or too stupid to admit it.

As for you, Katie, I may be a wanker, but my little girl is playing 3 feet away from me, safe and sound because I look after her properly, so if that makes me a wanker, I can live with that...and no, I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it's called being a mother.

Re Kay, Sweetheart, if I was attacking or insulting anyone, trust me, they'd know about it. Funny how you didn't pick Kate out when she called people wankers...and you wonder why McCann supporters are getting so much shite...I didn't send anyone emails threatening the safety of their children because they didn't agree with my opinion, so-called McCann supporters did this, said it would "make her know how the McCanns feel". So the "Holier Than Thou" tribe are really showing their trues colours now, aren't they?

Answer 6

It's the same whenever people start losing a debate. The McCanns are proving daily that they are muppets and the public are starting to sway against them. The supporters see the fact that they are becoming less and less and are finding it harder to justify their decision of staying on the side of the McCanns. Because there is becoming very little to say to defend them it degrades into abuse hurling. A fact of life I'm afraid.

Answer 7

I don't understand it either. It's as if the McCann's have become a media product - like Posh and Becks and somehow above criticism. If they had been a less articulate and photogencic couple then I think there would be a much more stringent attitude towards them in the press - or at least more open discussion of what they'd done in leaving their children. I find it very odd. When you think of some other cases the press have been much more freely speculative about those involved - I'm thinking of Joanne Lees for example, She actually had nothing at all to do with the disappearance of her boyfriend but there was considerable adverse speculation about her for a long time - she wasn't exactly media-friendly and came over as rather cold and this together with some aspects of the case that were difficult to answer served to vilify her.

I've just heard Roy Hattersley on TV say that there's something very strange about the case. It's hard to say what it is but I really feel there's something not right. The fact that 'supporters' are becoming very defensive may reflect the legal support the McCanns have - they very quickly got their own lawyers.

Answer 8

I have tried so hard to take a balanced view on this one - looking at each side of the argument. However, I always come back to one thing and one thing only. How could any responsible parent get dressed up for a night out, discuss leaving their babies and then agree between them that this is totally acceptable behaviour. To make matters worse and most probably hold up the initial police search, they then proceed to lie telling police they were checking on their children every half hour when in fact they were still eating and enjoying themselves. Poor poor Maddy - I think about her, how she was taken, was she asleep when she was taken, did she cry, where is mummy and daddy - I am so angry how could they do this? How can you condone this behaviour - just how can you?

Answer 9

Galpal, the thing is...you are the exception that proves the rule.

I, and many others, have asked several times for reasoned discourse from the McCann 'supporters' - this is usually met with cries of 'get a life' 'how dare you' 'you can't have kids' 'show some compassion' etc etc...

How about some valid defence of the McCanns?

Or is that the difficult part....?

ADDITION: Just take a look at the number of thumbs down I have received - is this not indicative of what we are talking about? I maintain (quite easy really because it is obvious) that the vast majority of McCann 'supporters' simply do not have any valid arguments whatsoever and the minority of you that do act in a reasonable manner still don't seem able to answer the questions posed - especially when it comes to a defence of the behaviour of Kate and Gerry. Someone below has just made an eloquent statement and we can always respect posters like that - what is comical and farcical is the rants from people like Angela F. Katie, Cindi K and many others...

As for Kay below, you're having a laugh aren't you? What Hallie wrote was NOT abusive when compared to the expletives that some of 'your friends' come out with. I see you can't debate the merits of the McCanns - I wonder why? Could it be because THERE AREN'T ANY???

Answer 10

Hallie? You wrote "[...] they are wrong, they are fighting a losing battle, they know it and they are just too stubborn or too stupid to admit it."

That is attacking, insulting, and dismissing people because they disagree - I thought only ''McCann supporters'' did this, according to several answers here?

i rest my case.