Rhetoric, Revisited

I have recently found myself browsing ZDnet forums for information about the conficker worm, which I anticipate needing to remove from a number of friends’ computers in the coming weeks. Normally, I contain myself to reading the actual articles, but for some reason I found myself reading an article about the most recent chain of Windows commercials, and my eye was drawn beneath it to the spam of comments from what shall, henceforth, be referred to as “Mactards,” “Wintards” and “Linux fanboys.” Effectively the argument (copied out a thousand times in a thousand languages) always goes one way:


Wintard: “Macs suck.”
Mactard: “What? Windows has viruses!”
Wintard: “Macs cost too much.”
Mactard: “That’s because they’re better.”
While (x <= Num_tards) {
Wintard: “No they’re not.”
Mactard: “Yes they are.”
x++;
}
Wintard: “You don’t have games.”
Mactard: “I’m too cool to play games.”
Linux Fanboy: “Linux is free and it has no viruses.”
Mactard + Wintard: “shut up, fanboy, you’ve only got like 5% of the market share.”

(If the Mactard starts it, simply ignore line 1)

Normally I would ignore this redundant spam altogether and hunt for meaty meaningful and/or original tardspam, but I had, at this particular time, recently been browsing political forums, and I discovered something interesting.

The rhetoric is identical.

Democrat: “Republicans suck.”
Republican: “Republicans are stronger on national security.”
Democrat: “Yeah, but they’re fat bastards.”
Republican: “That’s because they’re smarter and more successful than your dumb ass.”
While (x <= Num_tards) {
Democrat: “No they’re not.”
Republican: “Yes they are.”
x++;
}
Democrat: “You have no domestic policy.”
Republican: “Good thing we have all the launch codes.”
Democrat: “Wait, what?”
Lin... err... Libertarian: “If everyone voted Libertarian you wouldn’t have these problems.”
Democrat + Republican: “Shut up. You’ve only got like 5% of the voting base.”


Now this is, of course, a gross oversimplification of what I’m sure is a very complex set of issues, but given that none of the Detards, Retards, and Libertardians making said arguments actually understand any of the issues they’re arguing about, it strikes me that really, it might be simpler if everyone just shut up.

Now, in the name of hypocrisy:

The present administration just upheld the Bush reinvigoration of that “government secrets” bullshit. Essentially the way it works is, government misconduct is a “government secret” and therefore inadmissable in court. In other words, evidence that the government has been behaving badly is actually, by virtue of being evidence the government has been behaving badly, inadmissable in court.

Detard, retard, Libertardian, whatever, you have to admit that checks and balances are probably a good thing... them being the single most essential component of our governing system.

Stop shouting at each other for a minute and start fucking paying attention. We have a new administration, but that doesn’t mean we can stop breathing down its neck. Quite the opposite. We’re still going to hell in a handbasket, and even after that fall has been aborted, it is ultimately the responsibility of the American people to ensure that they do not lose the rights with which they have been endowed.

And if the government doesn’t want judicial review of its actions, fine. So be it. We’ll review its actions with more straightforward, “traditional” methodology.

(There is, actually, another option - that the new administration not breaking with the old indicates that whatever secret is buried is so dirty that they can't bring it out in the light even to pin it on their political enemies.

But I'd rather not contemplate that one.)