The other day we had a Huff troll here demanding that we stop insulting conservatives and working to get himself banned in order to make a case that the planet is some sort of Stalinist no-speech zone.
We did not accommodate him. I told him his arguments were weak and he accused me of insulting him. I corrected him and advised him that criticism of the quality of his arguments did not rise to the level of personal insult, not here.
I mentioned later in the thread a bit of conversation that I had heard between Christoper Hitchens and Stephen Fry (but I had forgotten it was Fry) in which Fry (gay as a three-dollar bill) asks “from where do these people (religious extremeists) get off saying that they are offended? He wants to ask “so fucking what?”
And I agree. So fucking what if you don’t like me challenging your (not us planetoids) opinion? Who fucking said that you have a right to an opinion that nobody could challenge? Man up or shut up.
Anyway. I enjoy it when Hitchens and Fry take the stage and make a good liberal arguement. Odd that Hitchens is also a NeoCon, and I am working up a column listing those of his lies that I am familiar. But I am with him on so many other things, and I am so weak for Brit accents (lived there as a kid) that I need to cut him a bit of slack.
This is Fry asking his question:
I just love the tone of his voice.
Just found this story on The Guardian U.K. Another crybaby, does Murdoch really believe that people are going to pay to read his crappy, biased faux news stories on the internet?
The man just can’t stop ripping people off, he thinks that he’s not quite rich enough yet.
What a piece of work!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google
When you look up megalomaniac in the encyclopedia, it has a picture of Murdoch.
I regard Murdoch charging to read his right wing propaganda as a very, very good thing.
How many right wingers will pay for the (ahem) privilege of reading his lies?
America might just become more informed.
Kalima, Good morning! While I have as much sympathy for Murdoch and his NewsCorp as I do for Bernie “Made-off” complaints about his shackles being too tight, I do worry about groups that aggregate the news. Sites that charge their advertisers based on their “clicks” and do not share their reveune with the actual people that do the fact gathering is having a detrimental affect on their news gathering. Do sites like HuffPo help defray the costs of actually having a staff in Iraq,London,Tokyo….? Where will our “news come from when the reporters are gone? Will the web be left with only Facebook accounts of their dog peeing? How is it possible to write an informed opinion without some basis of facts? (Goodness, I am agreeing with “Pox Snooze 🙂 )
Good afternoon to you bitohistory.
I pay enough every month to my internet provider and I’ll be damned if I would pay to gather information and facts from news organizations online, especially anything that he has in his grimy hands. Living in Tokyo is expensive enough.
If Murdoch wants to quibble then he should consider closing down his faux snooze channel, paying all those idiots to talk nonsense every day would save him a few pennies I’m sure. Are you listening Rupert??
There are so many sources to choose from, I don’t think that the scrooges on the other side are even prepared to pay for what he has for sale.
I do not pretend to know the answer, but I do worry about whom will pay the collectors, reporters of the news. My local paper just dropped McClatchy News service and they have had to curtail some of their international offices. It is an all AP paper.
I adore Stephen Fry to bits but can’t stand Hitchens who rambles on like the drunken, obnoxious, pompous and self-righteous arse he really is. Did I miss anything?
Yes.
I don’t understand what happened to Hitchens. I used to read him years ago in The Nation and my recollection is that he was a fine intellect and a progressive. Now, he is as you say, just an obnoxious drunk.
Instant asshole … just add alcohol?
I really have no interest where or why he’s no longer around. Life is difficult enough without trying to figure out a comment for less government while a few posts up he claims he wasn’t talking about government. Please spare what is left of my sanity!
Here’s hoping that wilted is off somewhere marching with his super duper intellectual buddies and they are learning how to spell, learning the real meaning of the word “reactionary” or studying what makes Becky cry like a big girl’s blouse on the telly apart from the Vicks Vapour Rub under his eyes.
For all the umbrage taking and furious posting for a day or so, the interesting thing is that apparently our troll vanished into thin air. Or at least as nearly as I can tell, he has.
I’m left wondering what sent him packing. The fact that he was repeatedly asked to defend his ideas, rather than swap insults? Were people actually too nice for his comfort level, if he came here looking for a fight? Did he feel outnumbered (which he certainly was, but what did he expect?)?
I’m not saying I miss him. But if we have developed some sort of troll repellent, it would be nice to pin down what it was!
I truly believe his goal was to be able to go back to HP and say: “I totally kicked ass over there on their little warm-fuzzy planet.” or “They threw me off, censored me, banned me–whatever–because they couldn’t handle my brilliant right-wing debate style.” Neither happened. So apparently the only remaining option was to slink away into the November night…
Which–in a different sense–is just what I plan to do right now. It’s 1:30 a.m., once more, and I must say I have hit the proverbial wall after having spent the previous ten hours battling the forces of H1N1 and other bugs…with debatable success. (At least everyone was still breathing when I left, though. Small victories.)
I’m sorry you have the flu.
What angered me most about that troll, other than his pure whining — and I HATE whining — was his control freak bullshit of demanding that no one at the site should be allowed to use the word, “Teabagger,” because he CHOSE to be offended by that term (After claiming that he wasn’t a Teabagger.). I’m not going to have someone show up here — or on HP — giving me orders on what I am allowed to say or not say in his presence because of what he CHOOSES to be offended by. That really chapped my stink glands…
Hence my link to Stephen Fry.
“You’re offended? Too fucking bad!”
I asked the transient troll, on three or four separate posts, to provide something tangible to support his conservative views so we could engage in a real discussion, which he kept implying was his purpose in life. But he didn’t bother to respond to my prodding. Not once.
Perhaps I’m not the kind of commenter who elicits a response. My lack of edu-ma-cation no doubt! But IMO this guy represented the bulk of the troll population (at HuffPo), who rant about wanting to discuss issues, yet go out of their way to avoid it.
I have found that to be a sure-fire way to shut them up.
That particular troll, IMO, just wanted to make each thread all about him and his “feelings.”
I’m actually thinking of doing a little piece breaking down the different categories of trolls!
Yep, that’s the “tell”. When you press them to have a discussion or debate, they ignore it.
Very simple to see that’s because that’s not why they’re here.
Many of these trolls seem to me to be emotionally immature and awkward people who simply crave attention…because such traits don’t really lead to meaningful friendships or relationships that would fill that loneliness gap.
For this type, even negative attention is better than no attention. Such feelings of inadequacy, if they can only say something that can make another person react, they feel they have at least some power in their lives.
Taken to an extreme, this is the mentality of arsonists, they need to prove they have power. And in a way, what are trolls but blog arsonists, trying to burn down conversations and debate to prove they matter and have power.
However, on this Planet, they don’t.
Ugh, my sympathies. I had H1N1 a couple of weeks ago. Nasty infection…..
Hope you feel better, Kesmarn!
“Too nice for the trolls” – maybe that;s our tag line….??? LOL.
That’s not a bad line to pursue. I’m sure that if we can up our own output of issue centered stories and concentrate on them, we can find a lot of others who want to express themselves in a more gentile environment and we should work on attracting them.
Kesmarn, get well soon! I suppose I’m lucky in my avoidance of most human contact right now and staying away from whatever is passing the flu around. Now my wife works in an office with tons of clients passing through, so I hope she stays well.
I haven’t seen that little dipshit making any comments over there on this, but I haven’t looked much either. I, like many, already knew his “style” (kindly described) and realized it wasn’t going to be any different here. But I gave him a chance, and he hung himself with his own rope.
Gosh, if I hadn’t been so tired last night (early this a.m.), I would have been more coherent. Thanks to all for your kind thoughts, but the flu I was battling was actually other people’s flu. I’m an RN who alternates between step-down ICU and Coronary Units, and we’ve been going nuts trying to take care of a big wave of respiratory crud (including H1N1) that has rolled through. Makes for very long hours
But it sure is nice to know y’all have my back if/when I do get sick!
Thank you guys!
Kesmarn, I sort of had that idea in the back of my mind, but even nurses get sick.
Sort of like the mother of a late friend of mine, she was an OB/GYN nurse in a hospital, but as a good C(XXX) she kept on having them herself, ending up with 10 children. I know she knew how they happened!
LOL.
Kinda reminds me of my late mother-in-law, who was the classic New England lady sort and surprised me one day when she said: “The thing about babies is that they surely go in much easier than they come out.”
I suppose that would have been scrubbed over on HP, in spite of their fondness for provocative pics/headlines!
Most of her children figured this was not the best way to be, all except my friend. He and his wife had difficulty having children (ovarian cysts) and after surgery were urged that if they wanted any, to do it NOW. Well, five children later… And then before the oldest was 8, he died (age 38) from a genetic blood clotting issue. Then the widow decided to become an RN herself.
BTW, I know they didn’t have insurance much of the time and life wasn’t easy on them.
Life takes some strange turns, doesn’t it? One thing I’ve learned is that medicine is anything BUT an exact science.
That lack of insurance you mentioned with your friend’s family sure resonates. I see the misery and anxiety that causes all the time. Reform can’t come soon enough.
I get the prize I remember you work in a hospital from an earlier post so I knew it was not you who had H1N1 thank goodness.
Ask AdLib about the swine flu he did have it a few weeks ago.
I think he did not return because he failed, in every way.
He had little to say other than how offended he was and to condemn those here and the site.
When as a community, we treated him with restraint and respect, refused to play his games and insisted on discussing the topic he claimed to be concerned about, I think he just ran out of gas. He wanted a fight and he was met only with debate.
Props to all our members for exemplifying our principles here and our rejection of the “slap and punch” version of “debate” that goes on at another familiar site.
So, not being joined in his mud fight coupled with the respect for free speech here that allowed him to keep commenting and not be moderated or banned must have left him disoriented. It began to seem that he had hoped to be censored or banned so he could further attack the site and its members for being dishonest about allowing and seeking all POVs.
We keep our word here, all POVs are welcome from Repubs, Indies, Dems, whoever. We just require a minimum level of respect towards fellow members and the site…just no name-calling, personal attacks and derailing or disrupting threads and the site.
Even the most extremist Republicans are free to fully express themselves here as long as they came here just to discuss their POVs on issues like every other member.
As for our visitor, when he name-called at another member, he violated the Terms of Use so (if he ever returns) his comments will be moderated so that comments with further name-calling, personal attacks and disruption of the site will be restrained but all comments about issues will still be posted.
We weren’t anxious to apply the rules and moderation for the first time but we won’t hesitate to apply them as explained and in a fair and equal way.
You could not be more correct.
I find faux indignation the cowards way out. While I would personally try to refrain from saying you opinion is fucking stupid, it is not the same as say you are fucking stupid. But I sure as hell will sure call teabagger logic fucking stupid and their views extreme and racist in origin but they bring that upon themselves from the signs they carry.
I think the areas where people can cross the line and use offensive talk are pretty well established with direct personal assaults, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, racist or ageist comments. You know comments that are just directed at people because of who they happen to be not based on their input on the blog.
You old goat.
Watch it I’ll cry domestic violence.