An incisive dissection of a popular Internet message board

So I’m sitting here listening to Romeo Void sing “Never Say Never”,(don’t ask why), and I’m wondering what the hell has gone wrong with our political system. Okay, it’s not really the political system that’s gone whacko, it’s the normal rules of civil discourse. I’ve never made it a habit to read blogs, but I have been a regular reader (occasional poster) on one of the major message boards on the net *cough* yahoo *cough*.

What I’ve seen and read on those things are just atrocious breaches of etiquette. Usually, the discussion starts out with a pretty tame message that goes something like this; “Am I first?” or the more enthusiastic, “YEAH!!! FIRST POST!!!” From then on, though, it gets pretty ugly.

The second message relates the fact that Al Gore invented whatever the story is about. For example, if the story is about the price of tea in china, the message will be “AL GORE INVENTED TEA”. The next message will be a blasting satire on Bush and his “cronies”. Using the same example, the message will be something to the effect of, “Halliburton owns China, all the tea is owned by the Carlyle Group, and Bush is killing all the old people in China so that his cronies can make a profit.”

I was trying to figure out exactly why these people can post the same thing over and over and never get tired. Then I noticed that this particular BBS has a feature called “recommend this post”. Wow, this might be the clue for which I was looking. Sure enough, we look through the recommended posts, and blammo, the most vile posts are the ones that are the most recommended. So these cretins that post hate, stupidity, and filth have gotten their “atta-boy” points for the day, and may now go about their business.

I would propose that anyone that uses the boards to post this kind of stupidity, but still remain hidden, should be tracked down by a special crew of spies... I think Jean Claude Van Damme has some time on his hands... Anyway, they should have their fingers cut off and stuck on itty bitty spikes in the town square so that we can all learn a valuable lesson. Well... even if we don't learn anything, it'll look pretty damn funny with all those fingers waving at us as we walk by.

The point is that just because you are anonymous, that doesn’t mean that you should act like an ass.

Oh yeah, by the way... just because I'm conservative, it doesn't make me a rich, white, homophobic, xenophobic, fat racist, any more than all liberals are socialistic, naive, whiny, puling little cybaby social elistists.

If all you can add to a discussion is namecalling, then you pretty much don't have much of an argument.