Hyacinth, I think that you're guilty of premature exhortation, if only you'd been able to take a deep breath & contain your indignation a while longer, perhaps the thread might have led to more substantial 'confessions'. There might have been thicker meat on the bones, into which you could have sunk your angry teeth more effectively. I think that further illuminating confessions are now unlikely, in the face of further moral attack. Perhaps such crimes are better kept botlted up, but personally I like the openness that forums such as this allow, notwithstanding that racist/sexist comments might be unacceptably offensive to some.
I think that you miss the point. I don't believe that the other postees & myself were seeking a pardon as you put it, merely seeking to get off our chest past crimes. Selfish perhaps, interesting hopefully to some, but not an attempt at justification. To suggest that we're sociopaths as a result is surely over the top, even by your standards. I don't think that our code of moral turpitude would exclude theft,deception & dishonesty, surely by posting confessions we're acknowledging an understanding of wrong.
I'm I'm struggling to sympathise with your world of certainties. You say that if we're not honourable, then we must necessarily be dishonourable. You also say that you have done things of which you are not proud in the past, presumably a mealy mouthed way of saying that you have done things that you consider dishonourable. Does this make you a dishonouable person? Maybe not, more likely a person like the rest of us, who at times does dishonourable things, & maybe honourable things at other times, but most of the time things that are neither or somewhere between the two.It may be easy to compartmentalise people on the basis of a single or several actions or words, your black & white world makes for easy self righteousness, but surely the real world consists largely of different shades of grey, which are constantly shifting.
Just realised that I'm being boring, apologies, I think I need to lighten up too. Anyway, an enlightening thread, made all the more interesting by Hacinth's posts, even if I can't see eye to eye with some of his comments. Love the shed by the way, hope it belongs to Hyacinth.