You said — “Insisting something is self-evident is a poor form of argumentation.”
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I don’t have to insist on it. All I have to do is state it and people of rationality see it immediately as self-evident. Nothing much more is required, than that... :-)
And we build quite a bit on “self-evident truths”, all the time... In fact, we *constructed an entire country* from “self-evident truths”.... :-)
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Of course, if you had been there, back then, you would have been arguing that these were really not “self-evident” were they... LOL...
So far you have a congregation of one ... you. The only thing self-evident about your claim is how lame it is.
That's a difference without a distinction. No rational person here seems to be buying your argument.
I found this definition from the Bierce's Dictionary that seems to fit well in your case:
“self evident”: Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
I agree.
Self-evident statements do not require argumentation.
Those who fail to understand them, likely will not be persuaded to perceive them by such argumentation.
For example, spiritual statements to the believer may be self-evident, while to the unbeliever without a regenerated human spirit, lacks the functionality to perceive such statements of the spiritual domain.