I make a deliberate point of, as much as possible, never thinking or speaking badly of anyone. Not even in private

Then I think that you are in grave danger of getting pretty badly screwed by someone. There are genuinely bad people in this world, and there are lots of kind-of-bad people who will screw you over and rationalize it somehow. You have to have a healthy skepticism (not paranoia) about people's motives, it's the only way to prevent someone taking your money or your job/house etc. Seriously, forget the darned debate: if what you say is true, you are probably in serious danger of being taken advantage of in some way.

If I were you, I would seriously consider trying to improve your social skills the hard way, i.e. by learning social skills, and not engaging in potentially massively self-harming motivated cognition.