It was absurd long before my post and furthermore it doesn't seem like you have an open mind. Could it be that we have actually just examined the evidence and thought, "Yup. It seems to be pointed in this direction."
While sarcasm may not be to your taste, the "You just don't know" argument also seems to be one of the lowest forms of debate. Of course nobody knows. You also don't know that Derek and Mike don't hate John and Jordan's guts and are hoping their feelings are hurt. I don't think that but hey, I guess I don't know for sure.
What's actually kind of alarming though is that you apparently don't know you posted something blatantly false about James. He never said "We're happier now that Mike's gone" or whatever misquote you wrote. That's not one you can chalk up to, "Ya just don't know." We know for a fact that he never said that. At least publicly. Private conversation with family? Ok, I guess we don't know. But we have no evidence that ever happened.
Wrong:
https://www.antimusic.com/news/11/july/ts12LaBrie_Says_Dream_Theater_Are_Better_Without_Mike_Portnoy.shtmlhttps://rocknewsdesk.com/world-news/labrie-dream-theater-is-better-without-portnoy/2496/"We are better and happier now without Mike". Boom.
As for "open mind", you're missing one KEY point: I'm not at ALL saying JUST that "we don't know". Of course we never REALLY know, and there's nothing wrong ABSENT ANY OTHER INFORMATION to draw conclusions. My beef is when we IGNORE information that contradicts our conclusions only to stick with our conclusion or justify our emotions. We KNOW there is more to the story. It's not as if I am just speculating that there MIGHT be more. I get it, I'm not at all dumb. I know there's a chance that OJ didn't kill Nicole, but reasonable doubt says he did. I understand it (probably better than my posts indicate). BUT, we have three people that know him personally, spoke to him about it, and have worked with him repeatedly (one, I know for a fact - because I was there - regularly speaks to him) who say we don't have the full story. Yet, some of you refuse to acknowledge that, refuse to accommodate that, and to me that's the equivalent of finding your wife naked in bed with the postman on top of her and saying "but no, she's not cheating. Nope."
So if your main argument has been repeated over and over that you can just never know, why do you all of the sudden think you know that I don't care about other peoples opinions. That's what was the most bizarre about your argument. In this instance, you clearly don't know...especially on a day where I gave a shoutout to a coworker for always being willing to debate despite our opposite opinions and always maintaining a great working relationship and friendship despite our political differences. Are you just being indignant? Sensitive? Honest question. I thought we were told not to be sensitive and yet now I'm being called names because it seems I touched a nerve. This whole time I was having fun. Again, the people that tell me not be sensitive (even though I wasn't) and we should just have fun with it (which I feel I was) have a big problem with this?
See above; it's not as simple as "you can just never know". If you meet someone for the first time and say "hi there!" and they say "Go fuck yourself", you don't know why that happened, but you'd be fine and reasonable to say "that's a dick". BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO OTHER INFORMATION. An important part of my argument is that you can't ignore evidence that doesn't support your emotional conclusion, and I see a lot of that here.
As for the rest, I am honestly lost. I'm NOT sensitive. I don't carry any of this with me. That doesn't mean I can't respond to false arguments or ad hominem arguments. If you said something to me (I honestly don't recall) and you were joking and I didn't seem like I took it that way, that's on me, my bad. I have no animosity to anyone here, and my feelings for people are not based on whether they agree with me or not.