This will be a tutorial based on my experiences dealing with the lunatic fringe. I will state my premise, Persons A and B will respond in typical troll form. All arguments proceed in this general manner:
John Cole:) The sky is blue, grass is green, and birds fly.
Person A.) I am not sure where you get your information, but it is just the selected Presidency of Bush/Cheney that want you to believe that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and that birds fly. In their quest for global hegemony and their never-ending pursuit for oil money, these are fictions that have been hoisted upon the public so that you will remain docile while they raid the economy to take money from the poor to give to their rich friends. You can also not forget the importance of the Jewish cabal who planned and carried out the 9/11 atrocities so as to provide cover for all of the belligerent, unilateral, military actions that we are currently undertaking. And even though I deny your premise that the sky is blue, since the Cowboy Bush backed out of Kyoto, angering the world community, the sky will shortly be nothing but a vast ozone hole devoid of anything.
John Cole:) Did you even read the links I provided or did you just feel the need to lash out? Try checking out the facts I have provided.
Person A.) Oh sure. John Cole always believes only his ‘facts,’ and fails to consider anything said by anyone else. Why don’t you look into the facts I have just provided you. Besides, it is clear where your facts come from- you can not trust any of those right-wing, war-mongering cheerleaders from the Richmond Audobon Society, Michigan State University, or the Freepers at Why is the Sky Blue Dot Org. In fact, one of the members at the Richmond Audobon Society watches Fox News and the mascot at MSU is “Sparty” the Spartan, clear evidence of their bias towards aggression and a Eurocentric, phallo-centric viewpoint of a world dominated by white male aggression.
John Cole:) What the hell are you talking about? Are you nuts? Go read the links I have provided, and then try to refute it based on contradictory evidence or, at the very least, rudimentary logic and reason.
This is usually when the valiant savior pipes in, coming to the aid of his comrade.
Person B:) John Cole writes: What the hell are you talking about? Are you nuts?
This is typical of the profanity and belligerence I have encountered from John Cole on numerous websites. When he is losing an argument, instead of providing facts, he simply starts name-calling and swearing. Typical behavior from a Freeper. Why does everyone on the right wing hate so much? Also, John Cole conveniently leaves out that the sky is not blue at night, when it is black. Is this because he is a racist, and he has trouble with the color black? Also, everyone knows that grass is brown in the winter- the color of the millions of disaffected minorities and civilian casualties injured in our unwarranted military conquest of the world. John Cole also fails to point out that the Emu and the Ostrich can not fly, and both of them are predominantly brown/black. I think what we really need to do is ask John Cole why he hates black people and Arabs? Why do you link on your website to racists like Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs, Mr. Cole?
John Cole:) Are either of you going to comment about the statements I have made, or are you simply going to keep spewing this nonsense from this fantasy world you have created?
Person A:) We are not the ones living in a fantasy world, you vile racist. Unka Karl has you right where he wants you. Why don’t you go home and put some holes in your pillow cases and watch Faux News or MSGOP, you ugly troll.
Person B:) Hey, Person B- Did you see Raimondo’s new piece in Arab News showing that Ted Rall was right about Chimpy’s adminstration using the blood of Arab children to refine oil cheaper, before forcing one-legged bomb victims to carry it on their backs to an Israeli port for shipment to Halliburton? SF Indymedia predicted this 6 months ago.
Dean Esmay
There are people on the Right who act like this as well.
It’s best to point out their foolishness and move on. Although warning people about it, and making fun of it, is also not a bad thing. ;-)
Tom
Err, Raimundo’s not a lefty. He’s a libertarian.
He is a god-awful prick though, so feel free to bash him.
John Cole
Raimondo is an anti-war, xenophobic, hate-mongering Buchanitie conpiracy theorist libertarian. In other words, part of the Indymedia crowd.
Barney Gumble
How I wish there was a way to search Atrios’s comments for John Coles posts…
Venomous Kate
Wonderful stuff, John! And so very, very accurate… why, for a minute there I was convinced you were channelling Jane Fonda!
Kathy K
Good one.
You’ve obviously been hanging out on Atrios’ site too much.
Though I’ll agree with Dean that arguing with some on the other side is as bad (the conspiracy theories are different, is all).
BF Durbin
HOW TO ARGUE LIKE AN ALWAYS-RIGHTY IN A WEBLOG COMMENTS BOARD
– This will be a discourse based on my, albeit limited, experience dealing with the levelheaded centrists. I will announce my ideas and Person will respond in typical beatific form, or at least in a way that I want them to since this is my bilious diatribe. All discussions seem to proceed in this general manner:
PERSON: All grass should belong to us, the sky too, and the world is flat, but we have a right to possess it also.
AMEN CORNER: What’s with this person crap, say MAN you limp-wristed, femme-loving, girly-boy.
ME: Well, I thought we were having a discourse about the nature of…
MAN: I am not sure where you get your information, and I don’t really care because you
Sparkey
Some us don’t even bother and just ban the jerks. (Yeah, you know who I’m talking about)
Robin Roberts
Especially the less creative trolls …
Barney Gumble
Sparky, I remember that. You denied GHWB sent the troops to Somalia.
For you folks at home, here’s sparky’s link
http://www.sgtstryker.com/weblog/archives/003275.php
and heres my link
http://mwowatchwatchwatchwatch.blogspot.com/2003_05_04_mwowatchwatchwatchwatch_archive.html#93802764
you’ll notice it’s titled “How to make a rightards head explode: Tell him Somalia was GHWB’s fault.”
Matthew
“How to make a rightards head explode: Tell him Somalia was GHWB’s fault.”
A couple facts for Barney:
Our cooperation with and deployment alongside UNOSOM I in late December 1992 was GHWB’s doing. In the lead up to this deployment, then-candidate Clinton (and CNN) had attacked GHWB for not having the yarbles to go to Somalia.
US participation in UNOSOM II, which began in late May 1993, was under Clinton’s watch, and the troop draw down and subsequent reduction in the type of materiel allowed in-theater was something orchestrated by Clinton’s SecDef, Les Aspin. Furthermore, the “legalistic” approach to the Habr Gidr (snatching them and putting them on trial) was advocated by the “new thinkers” in Foggy Bottom at the time. Legalism (rather than military strategy), coupled with budget cuts, led to the disaster in Mogadishu. Clinton’s cowardice before the polls led to the second disaster (for the Somali people), our withdrawal.
Now, if a right-winger denies that GHWB sent troops to Somalia, feel free to slap him. But if you can’t see the difference between the two phases of the Somalia deployment, you’re as bad as the rest of the lefties John parodied in this post.
Barney Gumble
Your facts are entirely correct, Mathew, but you miss the point.
November 7, 1992. GHWB loses to Bill Clinton. He is now a lame duck President until January 20, 1993.
I’ll let time magazine tell you what happened next:
“What is a President-elect to do but wish U.S. troops Godspeed as they set off for Somalia-even if he fears, as an Administration official acknowledged, “that he may well inherit a mess
“Bill Clinton did not learn of Bush’s plan to send troops on Thanksgiving until after they had been offered to the U.N. He was not told of less drastic options that Bush had discarded, like beefing up the U.N. contingent already there. Since then, Bush has called Clinton once, and the White House has kept Clinton aides informed about military preparations. But the flow is one-way. “We haven’t solicited their views and they haven’t particularly offered any,” say a Bush official.
Time magazine, December 14, 1992 p28 (emphasis mine)
Out of the infinite options available to him, from money, to air drops of food (food being the time-tested cure for famine), to getting a third party’s military involved, GHWB chooses to send U.S. soldiers into urban combat.
Why would he do this?
1. GHWB was bitter, and decided to stick it to Clinton and leave him with a foreign military mess.
2. GHWB was working on his legacy, and thought a quick military victory would polish his image.
In either of these these scenarios, GHWB played with the lives of Americans for his own vanity. Getting men killed to salve your own ego is one of the most morally reprehensible things I can think of.
3. GHWB was finally overwhelmed by the compassion he had held in check during the political campaign.
Choose to believe this one if you wish. I don’t. It doesn’t explain why the President-elect was kept un-informed.
Barney Gumble
on edit: un-informed should be un-involved in the last sentence.
Matthew
Response to Barney’s point posted on my blog. (Sorry, archives are fudged.)
Steve Malynn
Barney, I was one of the Marines sent in by GHWB. In thirty days of military action we had essentially imposed a cease-fire in a decade long civil war. We had succeeded in flooding the country with food. Banditry still abounded, but they thugs stopped stealing food because it ceased to have enough value to barter for guns and drugs. Four months later the leaders of the ten or so largest factions (all based on clan relationships) were talking and (barely) containing their drugged-up teen-aged thugs. The Marines were on a constant war footing, shot looters and anyone displaying a fully automatic weapon. With M-1 tanks, Light Armored Vehicles and LVTP carriers (Armored amphipious personnel carriers) A small USMC presence was the most potent force, and kept armed struggle down to the occasional (daily) pot-shot. (We fed people all day, and at night some drug-crazed knucklehead would start shooting in our general direction to little effect, or an occasional sniper would try a shot — our snipers were better.)
Clinton decided that the USMC was not cooperating with the UN enough, too war-like. A smaller US presence, without a credible military force was sent in for the Marines for the second UN phase. The US army forces who replaced the USMC presence (along with a unit from Pakistan) were not armed or prepared to be the enforcers needed to keep the peace. Then the Clinton policy-mavens decided that Aideed needed to be taken out, because the UN hated Aideed and did not want to work with him. Remember talks were underway and Aideed was the strongest Somalii leader, but the UN wanted him gone in favor of weaker factions. So the Clinton planners send in special forces, without their full compliment of supporting firepower and without sufficient conventional forces as a backup, to accomplish the mission of undermining Aideed. Special Forces conduct numerous raids to capture Aideed’s lieutenants, in the summer of 1993. But by September 1993 the Somaliis (aided by veteran Arab fighters from Afganistan) learn how to take out Helicopters.
So the moral of Somalia: Strong forces on war footing cause negotiations, Weak forces cause disdain. Having Weak forces conduct raid ops in a neighborhood of 500,000 armed and drug chewing religous fanatics is neither good tactics or policy. Then when the US forces actually complete the insane mission you send them on (the raid captured the 2 Aideed Lieutenants, and just missed Aideed), but get bloodied, you run away and piss away everything that was accomplished by your predecessor, and anything that you had accomplished in the past 6 months. Not to mention dishonoring those sent in to die.
Somalia was a hard mission, and a valiant effort to give the UN some historical legitimacy. But the UN was illigit then and squandered its chance along with thousands of Somalii lives. Clinton never understood the absolute self-serving venality of the UN permanent burocracy, turned our foreign policy over to them, and squandered US military lives and prestige for no purpose.
The lesson the UN learned was not to even try, hense Rwanda. Military force can achieve good, if wielded by a moral force, the UN is neither moral nor efficient.
David Perron
The crickets are still chirping while barney posts to other topics.
barney gumble
The discussion moved to Mathews blog, where he called me a moron and quit, lomart Dave.
http://fearfulsymmetry.blogspot.com/
David Perron
No, I was talking about Steve Malynn’s comment.
Steve Malynn
Dave, sorry I came to the thread late. Or should I be sorry I came at all? chirp.
JT
The only problem I see in the original Person A and Person B posts is that they are unusually correct in grammar, punctuation, AND spelling! Trolls are rarely ever so!
Otherwise, good example. I’ve seen it happen just that way on any number of blogs.
David Perron
Uhhh….Steve, I was wondering why Barney hadn’t said anything in response to your post. Guess I’m being characteristically unclear. At least I’m consistent.
William Schubert
Isn’t this a straw man argument? You say this is how they act, and then you knock it down. But in reality, many more of us have degrees in mathematics and logic than you may realize, and we can actually reason intelligently, as well as provide factual data in our defense.
Jeff Broomfield
9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
(CBS) For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
“This is a very, very important part of history and we’ve got to tell it right,” said Thomas Kean.
“As you read the report, you’re going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn’t done and what should have been done,” he said. “This was not something that had to happen.”
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
“There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed,” Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president’s top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration
Acanty
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