Adventures in Comment Land

Sometimes when reading an opinion piece, whether it be a blog post, an newspaper opinion post or column; I find that the comments on the piece can often be more revealing and interesting than the piece itself. It is true that members of both sides of the aisle from time to time do or say something that is truly ugly and indefensible. When such an event occurs at the hands of a liberal / Democrat, one of the first things I do is rush on over to Daily Kos and search for a story / diary on the event and scroll through the comments. Now any excursion into Daily Kos can be traumatic, revolting and unsettling. I do not have this reaction because people are writing things I disagree with. I love political discourse with those who have different opinions than mine. When I read the comments on Daily Kos I see a teaming sea of people ugly inside to the core, brimming over with hatred and such intense, raw desire to reshape society in their image.

I see the Daily Kos community as the hoard in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in the scene where the Great Lion Aslan offers himself to be killed in the place of Edmund. Or as the hoard of orcs, trolls, and dark men faced by the Captains of the West at the Black Gate of Mordor. This is not because of their political positions I disagree with, but because of their unbridled or barely contained hatred and loathing they spew in comment after comment. There are a few here and there that try to keep the discourse on a higher plane, but they are drowned out and swept away with torrents of venom.

When events are captured on video (such as the ugly comments of Helen Thomas telling Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" or the assault by Bob Etheridge (D), N.C. on a young man simply asking if he supports the Obama agenda) the comments are dismissive out of hand when it is noticed that they are sourced on a conservative website. The usual denial when a break is caught in an edited version would be enough for these people to overlook a video showing a Democrat having sex with a child, slapping his senior mother, or kicking a dog - just as long as there were edited stops in the video. In fact even after Etheridge admitted and apologized for his actions, the commenters were still in denial.

The twisted minds and thought patterns of the hoard can be somewhat unsettling to wade through. Yet, the adventures in Comment Land that I have endured can be enlightening into their mind set, and sometimes in a strange way can be entertaining. After all, we enjoy some circus acts where the human body is twisted into pretzel like shapes; why can't it also be entertaining to see somebody twist their mind into a pretzel to defend the indefensible?