Inane comments

When I started this blog, I told myself that I would try to do a good job of responding to people's comments, however many there were. I've never liked the blogs that, in effect, invite people in but never speak to them again. To throw a hypothesis out into the public ether, then to say nothing while others come to comment on it struck me as somehow rude.

So I have tried to comment on comments, and I've bent over backwards to be polite, to try my best to see the positive side of whatever is said, not to leap to taking offense. For my trouble, I have been called names, I've had comments that betrayed no sense of what I was saying; in effect, I have invited people into my online home and endured their rudeness and offensiveness and obtuseness.

Within the past couple of weeks, it occurred to me that this was a quixotic endeavor indeed. There are people out there who just don't get it. Sometimes they're stupid, even illiterate; other times they are likely baiting me to get jollies out of my reaction. Frankly, I'm tired of it, I'm tired of putting comment response as a particularly high priority when I have other things to do. If it's a choice between taking the time to craft a response to a moronic comment or sharpening up my own blog post, I really should stick to my own knitting.

Yet there are times when a comment deserves to be called out, even if there's a chance I'm giving the commenter the attention he/she craves, and I received such a comment on my Saturday post. This post discussed the upcoming presidential endorsement by the Chicago Tribune, and expressed, if somewhat unremarkably, my interest in whether they will buck long tradition by endorsing Obama, or how they will justify endorsing McCain. I said nothing in this post about my own sensibilities, though I have been upfront and consistent in saying that I am an Obama supporter this time around.

And here is a comment I received from Anonymous:

See - afterall you are a white racist guy who put the independent sham up for the show. At the final moment, you are still endorsing or rooting for McCain who is even more reckless than George W.

If you look at the Governor record of George W, he is a likable guy with good intentions on many social reforms, like education (i.e. the top 10% of the students from each texas school district should be guaranteed a placement at UT, Austin or Texas A&M - the top two most competitive public universities, health care clinics for low income group, and sales tax exemption once a year to provide relief to low income families to prepare for back to school). He is misguided by the right wing or thieves of his own administration. Does he have a conviction or want to do good for the country? Indeed, I truly believe that he is a good natured and happy-go-lucky type of guy.

However, McCain has a long history of being a political hack that he will go against everyone even himself if an opportunity presents. Do you want a President who is so selfish that he would sink the boat and let everyone one die in order to survive?

Now I could let this go, and probably should, but, you know, if you wandered into my house and called me names with no justification, I would ask you to leave. The only exception to that might be if you were mentally impaired and did not know what you were saying.

And that's certainly possible, given the incoherence of this comment. The commenter calls the current president reckless, then describes him, in tortured English, as an amiable dunce. But the idea that a post where I suggest the possibility that the Tribune will somehow endorse McCain can somehow be construed as some kind of personal support for McCain is plain dumb.

But I'm not going to try to parse this statement fully, life is way too short. Just as I don't have the time to define words for my simpler readers (I have one commenter who is apparently offended because I've called his outlook on life "idiosyncratic," and he believes that I'm calling him an idiot - get a dictionary), neither is it worth my while to pull apart this foolishness.

But when you walk into my domain and call me a "racist," based on nothing but your own warped view of the world and your inability to read English, then I ask you to leave. Get out! Don't come here again, keep your asininity to yourself, because you are rude, and unpleasant, and repellent.