Once Again, Right-Wingers Make Poor Villians...

It's been a while, but I've got some time off now so hopefully I'll be able to catch up with all of the wonderful things I've been lacking on. One of them is this blog - sadly, these tend to be the first thing to get cut when you get sacked with a lot of work. However, I'm back, and I've got some time off, so I've got some catching up to do.

First thing is first. I made a post a while back about how dominionists make crappy villains. Well, apparently they come by that honestly. Really, there comes a point when you, as a liberal, just throw your hands in the air and say "you know what? If this is the best you've got, I quit. It's gotten to the point where having you as opponents is just downright insulting to me."

First up, the latest right wing kerflufle totally removed from what my main post is about. Well, maybe not. But this hey, it's all good in the end.

There's a building. It's in South Korea. And apparently it's trumped the War on Christmas (telling you how important it is). The story is here, but it's from the Blaze, a right-wing or quasi-right wing network. I say this with a degree of certainty, because this is some really petty shit, and I can't find information on it anywhere else: Glenn Beck (who else?) goes batshit at a building design.

Here's pictures of the building, named the MVRDV-Towers, for those who don't want to go to the Blaze and give them the traffic (perfectly understandable):

Honestly, I think this design is awesome. It reminds me of the archologies of science fiction; the "cloud bridge" is really well placed when you take structural constraints into considerately, and I can't help but think that they were at least marginally inspired by the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, because there's a lot of structural similarities (specifically, the location of the "bridge" that spans the two - it has to be there given the height of the buildings, because it's right there at the center of gravity, or close to it. That's why they're not tipping the building.)

Of course, if you're a right winger, you don't see a really cool architectural marvel, designed by a Dutch company with a history of really weird and unique architectural designs, employing concepts found in vertical farming with a certain aesthetic touch that makes the buildings look like they're punching through clouds. When you look at this building, you see a company that went out of it's way to mock the Twin Towers on 9/11, America's most sacred and holy day of the year.

I mean, if you squint, you can see the similarities. They are slightly unfortunately, but the architecture and the physics demand it if they wanted that sort of a structure. It was sheer misfortune the planes hit where they did; that was how they brought the towers down. If you take out the middle, the top falls. That's why towers connected in the middle (a la the Petronas Towers). So there are a few unfortunately similarities, but they mean exactly nothing. Honestly. It's like these people buy their knickers pre-bunched and ram it up their ass so they can have something to get pissy over. You're reaching when you accuse a company in the Netherlands, who's building this structure in South Korea, of intentionally mocking America. I mean, how self-important do you have to be in order to believe that? They're going out of their way to mock 9/11. Complete and utter horseshit, of the worst quality. Of course, the wingnut mind is a strange and scary thing; their morality is still very self-centered, and so this paranoia makes a degree of sense.

I honestly don't care about 9/11. I lived through it. I watched Bush drag it through the dirt to justify two illegal wars, the stripping of our rights, increased executive privilege, and a huge debt. And Obama is continuing the tradition. I don't give a damn about 9/11; for me, it's not even the day the United States died. That happened when we started the "War on Drugs." That was when the freedoms went out the window. That was when the police became more militarized. 9/11 was a day when 3,000 people died at once - roughly 1/3 of the figure of Americans who die each year due to preventable illnesses because they don't have healthcare (~10,000). Yes, it was senseless. It's no reason for me to get on the cross, or pretend like you have to take it into consideration with everything you do. I mean, I understand that the United States has a long track record of respecting the wishes of other countries, and taking into consideration the concerns of those people, right? And American companies are just as good about it, right? But anyway, 9/11 is so politicized that anything it could possibly mean has been overshadowed by what it caused. And honestly, the puppetmasters of the Right don't care, either. It's another tool for them to get their voters with the pre-bunched undies something to get riled over. Ah, the eternal sunshine of the American mind - "It's all about me!"

Hey, if I squint hard enough, I can see Jesus. Does that make it holy, too?

Anyway, onto the main post. Redstate.com has an ingenious plan to combat liberals and liberal blogs - I can only hope that I can net me some of these troll-ops. This is their ingeniously diabolical plan:

First, infiltrate the site. For this, you will have to avoid creating screen names like “GoPalinGo” or “Heartlandredstater.” Also, some websites may actually have you wait a week before you are allowed to comment or blog. Perhaps, they are investigating the e-mail address you give them against whether it is used for a conservative website. Be sure to avoid that tendency; if you use, for example, aol.com screen name for RedState, make sure you use a yahoo e-mail address for Dailykos, or whatever. Once you are there, the second part of the strategy is to gain their trust. For this, you cannot be too overtly gung-ho conservative in your outlook. Instead, you sort of have to be the voice of a moderate liberal. This will take a lot of acting skill, but it could be done. For example, over at ThinkProgress, they had an article about how the folks in Alabama got what they deserved with the recent spate of tornadoes because their legislators did not believe in global warming. It took all my energies not to reach through the Internet and strangle these kooks, but I responded, “Well, that might be going a little too far…” Along the way, I gained the trust of certain posters on that thread.
The third step is to move the conversation in the direction you desire. By doing this, you can then form the debate in terms you can win. For example, in the above story, although I said they were going too far in their comments, I moved the conversation somewhat by questioning whether the folks in Alabama would accept Federal funds to rebuild their lives. In other words, the subject was changed from a debate on global warming to one of fiscal responsibility. Once there, you can then highjack the thread. In effect, you have changed the subject and tenor or the conversation and the writer of the original post has lost their ability to moderate the conversation and that creates a free-for-all that gets the conversation far off the original mark. Of course, you will be accused of “threadjacking” or, worse (drumrolls please…) being a “troll.” To this I say, of course you are a troll and you should be proud of it. Embrace your status of being a “troll” on the liberal website and carry it through to its logical conclusion. To put it bluntly: Embrace your inner troll. If they realize what is happening and accuse you of being a troll or such, or if they try to block you and your opinions, remind them of their support for the Fairness Doctrine and their reasoning for it- to ensure that both sides have a say- should allow you to have your say. Force them to practice what they preach.

Ah. I was driving home the other day and I was cut off by some old guy going 35 down a 45 highway. I tried to go around him but he jumped in front of me again, almost like he was blocking me from getting over. I tried to go around in the slow lane but again, he cut back over and almost cut me off. I had to slam on my breaks and lay on the horn. As I did so, I noticed he had a "McCain-Palin 2008" bumper sticker. My thought here was "Well that explains it all. Not only does he drive like an idiot, he votes like one too."

This is another case of that. See, what they apparently don't realize is that most liberal commentators are intelligent enough to see where the conversation is going and if you're thread-jacking. And most will call you out for it. Not only that, but most liberal sites are going to be actively looking for you now that this is all over the internet. Way to win, fellas!

Embrace your inner troll. You know you want to. It's sticky and slimy and icky. But really, I'm of the mind most conservatives don't need that advice. Really. At one point on the AOL boards I'm sure there was something like 6 determined conservative trolls who posted 90% of the shit there. The other 10% was just regular trolls.

Internet etiquette is not their strong suit, apparently. And apparently they seem to misunderstand that these things "freedom of speech" and "Fairness Doctrine" don't apply to individuals. You do not have anymore constitutional right to go into my house and spew your garbage than I do in yours. My blog is my house. This is a semi-safe zone for certain people, and I work to keep it that way. I'm not overstepping my bounds for dropping the banhammer on a conservative tone-troll who's concerned about the economy when I'm posting about dominionism. If I go to a conservative sight and spout a liberal point of view, that banhammer is coming down before I can even finish that first post. So what we have here is a case of them not living up to their own expectations - they expect liberals to be patient while they threadjack but contrast this with what happens at Conservopedia. Over there it's like a giant paranoid game of whack-the-liberal with an administrator that's slowly spiraling down a pit, one bizarre delusion after another, and into persecutory madness. Even attempting to threadjack there is going to get your ass banned. So they're expecting something out of us - fair play - that they don't give in return.

Now here's the real shocker: raise your hand if you didn't see it coming. C'mon. Anyone?