Despite all that, the level of vitriol and defensiveness you have demonstrated makes me want to agree with everyone else. I am curious what the opinions are of people less informed on this topic and more emotionally in touch. You damage your side of the argument, not with your content, but your portrayal of the content.
Some of the things you said have merit, but they are ignored and derided because they are attached to you and you are attached to vitriol and vitriol rightly gets ignored and derided. The best thing you can do for anything resembling your side of the argument is to just back down. If you don't say anything for a day or two it will all just blow over and you can try again later when people are more willing to listen. You can try approaching the conversation like an engineering problem and perhaps see that manners and politeness are to conversation as lubricant is to an engine (or perhaps high clocks speeds to software). You can have a conversation without manners, run an engine without oil or run software on low clocking parts, but it won't turn out as well as it could have.