> If you are going to continue to attack a complete straw man of my arguments
It would be a strawman if the arguments against which I'm arguing were of my construction, but they don't seem to be.
> Your entire argument is predicated on 1) Damien, at almost 18 years of age, having absolutely no culpability for his actions, and 2) that he has shown genuine remorse for his actions, despite receiving essentially no punishment for a premeditated murder attempt and having shown no signs of remorse until he was asked to comment on the story.
Meanwhile, your entire argument appears to be predicated on 1) Damien, at less than 18 years of age and therefore legally and (arguably) psychologically a child, was somehow a perfectly rational actor with unquestionable culpability for his actions and was perfectly able to resist manipulation (which began, mind you, at 15, if not earlier) by adults wanting to use him as a tool for their hateful agendas, and 2) that he should be considered guilty of continued antisemitic beliefs/associations until proven innocent.
I won't pretend to know what that says about your personal character projections, but your argument is visibly just as speculative. Neither of us have enough information to judge that aspect of his character. Unlike you, apparently, I prefer forgiveness and the presumption of innocence in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
That's not to say that I don't judge him for being complicit in other immoralities, though (namely: being a current perpetrator of and accomplice to an unethical and likely-Constitutionally-illegal surveillance state, and his own resulting perpetration of such a state's implicit guilt-until-proven-innocence attitude).
> I would encourage you to extend the same level of generosity and charitableness you seem to show Damien Patton to the next person who challenges your worldview.
Like I said: I don't care who he is or how successful he became after apparently turning his life around. I just care that he apparently turned his life around and stopped associating with violently-antisemitic groups. If you have evidence indicating that he did not, then by all means present it and I'll gladly reassess.
And this is a standard I apply to all humans universally (both in theory and - as I grow older and hopefully more mature - increasingly in practice). I haven't exactly kept my attitudes and beliefs and opinions around rehabilitation-over-retribution and its impact on recidivism much of a secret over the years, whether here on HN and elsewhere on the World Wide Web.
I've given the benefit of the doubt to people who have done worse, specifically because I have the self-awareness to understand that people can and do change on the scale of decades (I know I've changed a lot in just one).
> I’m not sure how productive continuing this chain will be.
Neither am I.