Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The Right Wing Echo Chamber
I'm kinda responding to my own comment in a previous post, A Pig in Poke, where I talk about conservative Christian bloggers who want to live in an echo chamber, and who delete all commments they don't like.
I compared them to progressive bloggers, PZ Myers, for instance, who lets every comment stand (except those made by an actual troll who attacks and harasses the other commenters), so that literally anybody can come and express literally any opinion, at virtually any length.
The point is that too many conservatives, like the sweet nitwit LadySheepdog who has commented here, simply can't stand opposing voices. The vision of Bill O'Reilly cutting off the microphone of guests he himself invited onto his show is the perfect example, but LadySheepdog apparently feels free to censor blog commenters simply because she disagrees with them.
Who lives more in keeping with real American values? Easy answer here.
I revisit the subject because I just got a look at a late-August post from Michelle Malkin's blog, where this stern note prefaces her comments section:
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
And then there are her Terms of Use:
Michellemalkin.com allows you to post comments on the site, provided that you first register to do so with a valid e-mail address. Comments registration is now closed.
I may allow as much or as little opportunity for registration as I choose, in my absolute discretion, and I may close particular comment threads or discontinue my general policy of allowing comments at any time.
Apparently, you have to be a registered commenter to comment ... but she's not accepting new registrations.
Did I say Echo Chamber? Dayyum! Echo Chamber on Steroids.
The comments that follow are the nastiest mess you ever saw. One compares Michelle Obama to a character from Sanford and Son. Others call Obama a Marxist and a "communist thug."
And then there's this commenter who opines on Obama's team:
They have murderers, mafia, and muggers working for them and amongst their leadership. They do not hesitate to lie, cheat, steal, assault, or kill for power. We have the NRA and millions of well armed, straight shooting, honorable, brave and patriotic American men and women on our side and we are ready for a fight. If they had any brains they would run away now. Let’s roll!
The only response I can give to that is ... Holy Barking Jesus.
That's some crazy-ass shit.
And "certain people" (coughLadySheepdogcough) probably think these are good god-fearing salt-of-the-Earth Joe Plumber patriotic Americans.
Hoo boy, that I live in a country with such people.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
secret service ...
This needs to be forwarded to the secret service and homeland security.
Uh?
Would a Bush-created and -controlled government bureaucracy do anything about it?
Obama is driving them insane
If you want to see some really crazy shit, check out the blogs where the wing nuts are claiming Obama isn't a "natural born" citizen so he can't be president. They breathlessly post every nutty rumour, and have convinced themselves that if the Supreme Court doesn't block Obama's inauguration, he's going to institute an islamo-marxist dictatorship on January 21st. Oh, and of course they heavily censor posts from a real world perspective.
Language Lesson
It is easy to get on the same wavelength as Malkin, O'Reilly and LadySheepdog. One just gets so annoyed at all the mistakes that people make, becomes confused about how to deal with them, comes to the end of their wits and then! Suddenly one hears words that put form to confusion and horror. Apparently it doesn't matter whether the words are accurate as long as they are soothing and placatory.
Oh, to be that young again.
It sometimes makes a kind of sense
I have mostly been following blogs and forums dealing with evolution/creationism, where the same thing applies.
The scince side pretty much allows all comments, and the creationist side moderates heavily.
Examples of the first are of course PZ Myers, and also evcforum.net.
For a while I was active at a Danish creationist forum, skabelse.dk (skabelse = creation)
The problem was that we were perhaps 5-10 people who were regulars on the board, and of thes only one or two were creationists, and not very educated ones either.
Actually the board was hard to distinguish from evcforum.net in the way that drive by creationists posting creationist talking points were dealt with in short process.
We frequently wondered were all the PH.D's behind skabelse.dk's magazine Origo were hiding. Why did they not participate in their own forum? Why was it the retired Agricultural consultant, or the 15 year old boy who were the sole defenders of the faith?
The answer was of course that the numbers were against them. While they might be able to muster perhaps 5-10 people with impressing sounding degrees in all of the Nordic countries (skabelse.dk is a Nordic organisation, located in Denmark, Norway and Sweden), the scientist in the regular anti creationists crowd matched these credentials. If they had chosen to escalate the discussion by bringing their "specialists", they would be outgunned in a matter of hours, when a swarm of evolutionary scientists and educated laymen (like my humble self), would shred them.
So the debate continued for years on the slow burner, until one day, the forum upped an disappeared.
So it makes sense to moderate aggressively like creationists and crazy conservatives do. By and large most people are reasonable, so with no moderation, the creationist/crazy conservatives, wouldn't get a foot down.
The thing is, if reality hurts, substitute it with your own.
Some Choices are Made for You
But they did not. This is likely to happen. The solution is multiple efforts, a scatter shot effect. At some point, spaghetti does stick to the wall.
Find sticky walls. Throw more spaghetti.