Please don’t get me wrong - while I understand how the above could be seen as a “threat,” that is not at all what I meant or intended.

And to clarify: I get where you are coming from. And I never meant to disregard your beliefs Or philosophy on the matter. I agree with much of the “taxation is theft” rhetoric and have been struggling with intense charges towards government for years. I fucking hate the idea of - as you say, resort to being a “slave” of any sorts - and perhaps part of my lashing out was that your comment was a reminder of that and the conflict I’ve been having over having to man up and take responsibility in the matter to ensure I’m present to raise my future kids.

You managed to push some serious buttons with your approach. It’s rare I get so angered, and there are valid reasons for my taking offence because - whether it was clear as I intended to make it or not - you overstepped my boundaries here. (However, as has been made clear through your response, that does not excuse the faults in the approach I took with mine).

You can’t just walk onto someone’s property and impose your beliefs, manipulatively posing a yes-or-yes black-or-white question that frames yourself and your belief system as the victor without expecting a backlash at some point for infringing upon the right of others to choose their own perspectives and values.

The above post was not an open-forum for a dialogue on the moral philosophies of taxation. If you wanted to drop by and share your opinion, that’d be one thing - but to hijack the dialogue with such a manipulative tactic as to put me in the wrong for making choices to ensure the safety and security of my family - THAT is unacceptable in my book. But, I was clearly not leading by example to have responded in such a fashion.

There are big principles at play in such a dynamic that I’ve been witnessing numerous times on this platform and have been wanting to write about for a while. Such a display of them as the above served as an impetus to get the writing done. As stated, I planned to release the post - using a snapshot of this comment threat to exemplify the case - while greying out your profile photo and name because it would NOT be within my integrity to draw such extra attention to you in such a way. But given the nature of the blockchain, others could look back and find this - and that isn’t really a position I wanted to put you in. However, it’d be much more effective to serve the lessons in my piece of writing - which again, I’ve been wanting to put together since before this occured - to reference the example than keeping it as theory only. Whatever the case, I see now - my approach wasn’t cool. What violations of boundaries may have taken place, I understand, came with no ill intent - and did not justify such an extreme reaction. I’ve had a lot of backed up frustration and matters like these, and it was unfair of me to blow out on you like that.

My apologies for having reacted so intensely and leaving open room for misinterpretation, as I guarantee you, I never meant my last comment as a “threat” of any sorts. My intent was to make it clear in no uncertain terms that while subtly, my boundaries had been overstepped and intent to use the thread as an example. Clearly my delivery of that point was not executed well - and perhaps I had overstepped my boundaries by directly using your comment as an example, even if your info was blacked out and I had attempted to rationalize ‘offering the opportunity to save face’ as some twisted form of respect. I confess: that wasn’t in integrity or respectful.

I will be reworking the post to remove all references to this and stay focused on the principles I had in mind to write about earlier, because it is not in my integrity to leave open such a possibility that further attention would be drawn to you like that. I hereby acknowledge that I did compromise my integrity by not fully considering the details of how my response was likely to be misinterpreted and allowed my emotions to get the better of me before realizing the element of disrespect in my response. I offer my apologies here to restore it, and ask your forgiveness for my poor communication style in this matter.

Perhaps I should have waited to cool off altogether to respond at all, and didn’t fully consider how to deliver my message in a clearer, more mature way. I never did want to attack your reputation, and should have known better than reacting so emotionally would have come across the wrong way.

I appreciate your standing your ground on this. Thank you for the lessons here. While I may still stand my ground on the fact I feel disrespected with your approach and that you have no right to assert your beliefs in such a manner de-valuing my choices of how to conduct my business, I am grateful for the lessons you have provided through this last response. And you are right - I was out of line with how I chose to respond. Regardless of my intentions, I am humbled by my error in not responding maturely and your correction, and apologize for my disrespect.

For real - sorry for being a dick.