Seivan, I apologize deeply for getting your comment off track, and I hope others will not follow this further from your main point. However, I would just offer

Seivan, I apologize deeply for getting your comment off track, and I hope others will not follow this further from your main point. However, I would just offer a quick point of advice. Don't spend keystrokes saying you might be down-voted for something. It's actually bolder to just say what you're going to say. When you reference downvoting, you stigmatize it and influence people not to do so. I would rather know if people are going to have a downvote reaction to my comment than shame them into not downvoting me. I've had the exact same tendency to observe "well I might get downvoted for this," but I think it's a tendency that should be resisted.