You are not entitled to your opinion.

[Darkstar]

Sorry for coming late, but it isn't a necropost, so:

I think that another important point of this thread would be

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

If people who held unfounded opinions did not act as though said opinions were fact, their holding them would be considerably less problematic. Unfortunately, there is a certain painful irony in the Socratic wisdom of knowing how much one does not know; those who are least knowledgeable are the ones most likely to insist their opinions are fact, whereas a more intelligent person would acknowledge the limits of their knowledge (which would be interpreted as weakness by the other).

I should also note that many preferences (favorite color, etc.) are generally not based in logic (and cannot hardly be), and as such should not be evaluated by the same criteria.