You can change your position if you want to. But admit to it. When you say "Riding on the sidewalk is a disaster waiting to happen, dismount & act like a pedestrian." you're not telling us how YOU ride. You're telling us how TO ride.

Me, I have not asked you to ride on the sidewalk at all. Only explained why I sometimes do that. Read what you wrote. You talk a little bit about yourself but mostly about how other people should behave. Even when you talk about yourself it's in an holier than thou attitude about what a great citizen and honor to the bicycling community you are. And then you also insist when people say they don't feel safe, that they do it anyway. I suppose as a human sacrifice for the good of cycling around the world.

My point has been that riding on the sidewalk can be safe. It's not all or nothing.

No, I don't really think of myself as above the law. I just think of the law as beneath me :-)

Seriously, I consider the law and the rational for it. But I won't be bound by it all of the time. Laws are not as complex as the real world. The law must be simpler by necessity. That also makes it inappropriate advice sometimes from my perspective.