Trouble in Bloggie Land

I've learned a few things in my ramblings across Blogistan.  These lessons apply equally to everyone: left, right, anarcho-libertarian, royalist, whatever.


Tis easier to give offense than receive.
We all talk smack among ourselves and engage in gross generalizations of whole groups of people (Obama voters are leftists, tea partiers are racists, etc.)  Many who engage in this resent it when they are so lumped.  They shouldn't.  Imagine how stilted the writing would be if it were pockmarked with copious qualifiers, exceptions, and exclusionary clauses.  You'd never get your point across and no one would want to read it.


It's a blog, not a doctoral thesis.
Hyperbole, metaphor and other rhetorical devices are what make writing and reading fun.  There's a lot of over-the-top stuff out there, but I tend to grant blog authors pretty wide latitude before I consider a post the equivalent of crying fire in a crowded theater.  References are always good, but if you find yourself pasting in Rachel Madcow and Keith Olberboob videos every day, you may want to expand your horizons...

Everything is not a personal attack.
Lampooning and name-calling in a blog post is not exactly ad hominem, and it often serves a higher purpose.  Again, I grant a blog author lots of room to get her point across.  Saying "The socialists in the Democratic party," or "those moronic tea partiers" is not a direct insult to you, so get over it!  Now, if the author is just slinging that stuff around with absolutely nothing other than MSNBC to back it up, then he is the real moron. 

Don't say anything you would not say to the person's face
Calling someone in a thread a name is impolite, and things do get pretty ugly out there.  My personal rule is that I wouldn't say anything that I'm not willing to say to his face.

Words get abused and curmudgeonly purists need to just get over it.  Nazi, Communist, Racist, and Fascist are the Big Four.  Each word symbolizes a horrible chapter in human history.  Screaming these words at everyone you disagree with is the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.  It removes the sting from the words by overuse and diminishes the bloody history they represent.  Unfortunately, I only see this lexical abuse increasing.

Blogs are comfy clubhouses for like-minded people.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  Trolling is in the eye of the beholder.  It's all subjective, and the blog owner is lord of the castle.  If you don't like it, start your own petty fiefdom!

Attempts to "reach out" are Quixotic at best, naive at worst.  Guilty as charged.

DoD: Deparment of Diversity

I hate all that "Diversity is our strength" crap.  It is a forced diversity that has office managers telling people to pull down their American flags because one angry Muslim (who is living safely and getting a paycheck in this country) is offended.

It is a forced diversity that puts a great premium on getting just the right mix of lesbian Catholics, one-armed Haitians, transgendered, and of course the whole M&M bag of colors.

Real Diversity
Blogger Hack Wilson just got back from a month of Army National Guard training, and he blogged about his experience, with emphasis on the diversity of his unit.  It is a wonderful post that testifies to what a great, egalitarian organization our US military is.  

The Army is full of people of all races and backgrounds. I have made friends with blacks, hispanics, asians, arabs, native Americans, and just about every mix in between. When you wake up, eat, train, and sleep together you develop a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie that makes skin color a total non issue. Seeing as most leftists have never served in the military and hate it all together, it is no wonder they cannot understand this.

Army Accomplishes what College Campuses Cannot
Why is it that liberal academe is rife with social, cultural and racial unrest, while that most conservative American bastions known as the US Military is the most diverse and harmonious collection of Americans on the face of the earth?

Military men and women are the most tolerant, least bigoted people you will ever know.  We've seen great women leaders and we know from experience that skin color and national origin mean nothing.  Military people are the the least sensitive and least prejudiced people in the world.

Why? Because the military is a meritocracy. You can either do the job or you can't. Nobody cares what color, gender or religion you are as long as you can fix my truck or make the radio work when we need a dust off.

If you can't do the job, being white (or black, or female or Latino) won't keep you from getting bounced.  Wouldn't it be great if all of America were like that?

Welcome back, Hack!

How to Troll

Trolling 101:  An Object Lesson
A dude named Beamish is my newest hero! (and I'm suddently and curiously thirsty for beer...)  He totally owned the Obamabots over at a lefty blog called It's My Right to be Left of Lenin.

Everybody needs to go over there and treat themselves to a conservative tour de force from deep in the lions den of loony leftism.

Beamish stood up to the fleck spittle invective splattered at him by the rabid leftwads.  He bravely brought facts, quotes, and logic.  He even pasted in video, but nothing could crack their fantasy bubble. Reality just does not compute with some people.

I admire the man's perseverance. I troll a lot, and I do it like he does, bringing facts and avoiding being needlessly provocative. That had to be the best stand I've ever seen of a conservative at a liberal blog.

I got kicked out of kooks and cryers for less than that. Props to the blog owner Dusty, at least she didn't ban him.  Many "liberal" bloggers are quite intolerant and illiberal when confronted with inconvenient truths.

Beamish reduced them to muttering childish insults at him. Liberalism has nothing but emotion and foam at the mouth rants.

My Own Adventures
I've been trolling around some and holding my own.  Haven't "converted" anyone, but I hope that I've at least made some people stop and think outside the MSNBC bubble.

Response is varied.  Some are foul mouthed simpletons who refuse to think, others are good natured but take what MSNBC says as gospel and refuse to think beyond that, and some are very intelligent people who I have had some productive exchanges with.
I did find a gem of a liberal site in my travels across Blogostan:  The Swash Zone.  They are really good folks over there and they know how to argue their points intelligently and civilly.  If you're looking to debate some smart liberals, that's the place to go.

As always, I advocate civility at all times.  Profanity and gross insults while in someone elses house is not the way to win hearts and minds.  I've also been informed that what I do is not really trolling since I'm not being provocative, but I like the name...