Or so I am told by Republicans and TEA Partiers. This is certainly not a new theme by the American Republican Party. They have been throwing this label at Liberals for years and it ramped up soon after 9/11.
I have been extensively blogging on McCook Gazette's web page for years. I lived in McCook for four years and it became a home to me. So when the opportunity came to blog on their newspapers website I jumped at it. I have now been blogging there for about three and a half years.
Starting about 2006 the meme of Liberals hating America died down somewhat when Democrats won back Congress. Recently however this theme has started to get a new fire under it.
On the website I blog I have been called many things because of my Liberal Progressive views. None of them really surprise me or for that matter bug me. It is a common thread among Conservatives. When you cannot argue against facts you go into character attacks. What is funny about the Conservative poster is that they deny doing it. Not only do they deny making character attacks they attempt to turn it around and claim that by you calling them out on making character attacks you are actually the one making character attacks.
It is what has occurred recently that causes me to completely rethink posting on that website in the future. It has as much to do with the posters and a blogger and the administration of the site that even though they have fairly strict rules over what can be posted RARELY delete comments or blogs that violate those rules, despite having a flag option. I have contacted the site administrators and even though they ensure me that they do take it seriously and review every flag, it is obvious to this person that they do not. Especially when one of the people being flagged has several high ranking connections in the town (but I will get to that in a bit).
There is a blogger on the website who fits the typical Republican TEA Party mantra: facts do not matter, only wild speculation, and can never be corrected or shown that what they are saying is in fact wrong.
To give a little background about one of his recent blogs I first must talk about one of my own blogs.
On January 9, I posted a blog titled Political Assassination (Domestic Terrorism). In this blog I held those I believed to at least have a responsibility to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords in Arizona. I named four Conservative politicians and talking heads and said that they had blood on their hands. Obviously I was vilely attacked for making this assertion. Posters were demanding that I take my blog down and never blog for the site again and that the administrators needed to bar me from blogging. Keep in mind, even though that comment ultimately was premature and I did later apologize for the words themselves, that comment was not nearly as bad as what some of these same posters had said about me in the past.
So I fast forward to September 23 and blog by the Conservative blogger on the website titled: Who Needs a Crystal Ball?. If you take the time to read his blog you will soon discover his own language that makes mine look almost juvenile. As you can also plainly see by this TEA Partier that he believes that anyone to the left of his own beliefs (yes this does include other Republicans) is a Commie and a Socialist. No matter how you try to tell him he does not distinguish between the two even though there is actually a huge gulf between the two words. You will also see that he sees President Obama as a Socialist, which shows he really has no idea what a Socialist is.
It is one line in his post (and I say this with strong conviction that I do not believe any of this blog is actually a work of his but one he probably found on a website or a host of websites) that just jumped out to me:
This administration treats wealthy folks much like Hitler treated the Jews, and really, for the same reason. The Obama administration needs the producers money, much like Hitler needed the money that the Jews had.
As you can plainly see if you read the entire entry surrounding this comment that he is one of those people who have made the attempt to rewrite history and turn Hitler into a Liberal. It is this quote that caused me the most concern however as he is making a direct link to millionaires and billionaires in this country paying more taxes to Hitler attempting to exterminate the Jews. It is important to note that he is among the minority in this country who do not think that taxes should be raised on the "producers" in this country as evidenced by a poll done for DailyKos. Hell he's even in the minority among the TEA Party faithful that boo servicemen that are gay and cheer executions like they are some sort of sport.
When you read through the comments you will see me and a couple of the sane posters attempt to point out to the blogger that his comments are controversial and will offend people. As you can see not only does he not care he continues to push the line and then other posters tune in and defend his comments. Yes these are the same posters that demanded that my blog be taken down for saying that four Conservatives had blood on their hands now defending a blogger for comparing taxing the rich to killing Jews.
Just to give you a better idea of who this blogger is, both blogs on the site are our second blogs. The originals were taken down after this blogger, instead of debating the issues with, started taking pot shots at myself and my wife's sex life. I have alerted the administrators of the site about his comments. I do not want his blog taken down or even the language taken down. All I ask is that he admit that the language and the comparison were not good and that they can be seen as offensive. I do not expect any of this happen of course.
Where this blog is originating however is surrounding one poster who's tag is wallismarsh. The only reason I am including his username and none of the other bloggers or posters is because he continually says on the site that his life is an open book and his screen name is his real name. He continually posts about what he does and from his posts he apparently is working in at least 10 different fields, he has "connections" at every level of government. Which really makes me wonder how he has any time to comment on a blog.
This poster, I believe to be nothing more than a troll. Because he is from McCook and apparently has friends in high places he has never had any of his comments taken down on the site and has never been banned. Some of things he has posted are far worse for what has been banned on the site but he continually is allowed to spout his nonsense time and time again. Frankly I am tired of (most of it is directed at me. The guy apparently is transfixed on me for some reason).
In my last blog I posted about the killing of Troy Davis who I believed to be an innocent man put to death. It is on this blog, The American InJustice System that his true bile for me fully shows up:
I do find it annoying that Mike hates America so much.
The Media is biased in his opinion. The Republicans are filth. Our justice system is unjust. He just goes on and on about what is wrong with our country.
Yet, people all over the World still dream of getting here. Why is that Mike? Because in America if you have a dream and work hard enough anyone can own a business or even be President.
Wallis Marsh
-- Posted by wallismarsh on Sat, Sep 24, 2011, at 6:05 AM
Now keep in mind that is other Conservative posters that believe the media to be biased. The other blogger on this site has routinely stated how evil the Democrat(ic) Party is, has posted two blogs on his own about how bad the justice system in this country is, and calls the American Education System an Indoctrination System, yet I am the one that hates America.
I tried to explain this to dear old Wallis and his response was to ignore me and continue with his theme that I hate America:
Mike you do not love America.
You complain about it everyday. The root cause of your Hatred? You are a Socialist in a non-Socialist America.
Almost everyone of your blogs is either why Americs Sucks or your glee of more Socialist attempts to further your progressive causes.
You hate America. Just read your own writing.
Wallis
-- Posted by wallismarsh on Sun, Sep 25, 2011, at 4:53 PM
I invite you all to go to the Archives of my blog and find one example of why I think America Sucks or my glee for more Socialism. I tried to explain to him that not only do I love this country I want to see it succeed and move forward. Apparently for Republican TEA Partiers they see any attempt to improve this country and make it the country it was meant to be in the beginning as full on hate for this country. It is quite the paradox.
I have flagged wallismarsh's comments as being slanderous which is against the websites Terms of Service. Sadly I know these comments will not be taken down.
I do not have hate for these people. I feel sorry for them. Many of them are just confused and have allowed the Fox News' of the world to further that confusion. They fully believe the rewritten history that Hitler was a Liberal and the reason he wanted to exterminate the Jews was all about their greed and nothing else. They are ignorant that while Hitler sent devout Liberals to the Concentration Camps he sent very few (if any) devout Conservatives.
They are ignorant, and allow themselves to disbelieve, that the Founders of this great Nation did not want this country to be a one religion state, to the point that they put an Amendment to the Constitution. They also believe that even though the last Founding Father died long before the slaves were free (and that most of them had slaves), that the Founding Fathers fought to end slavery.
They believe that Trickle Down Economics is the only way to save the economy despite the fact that it has been attempted twice and failed miserably both times.
Hell, they still believe that President Obama was never born in this country, despite all the evidence.
These people just are willingly ignorant of the facts that surround them they curse those that attempt to show them the facts.
This is why I fully believe that President Obama will win a second term. The current crop of candidates on the Republican side are fighting so hard to please the TEA Parties, that represent barely 20% of the Party, that no matter who is actually nominated will be seen as so extreme the election should be a walk in the park for Obama. Just as long as the Democratic base does not stay home on election day.
These Conservative TEA Partiers only know hate and disgust and finally most of America is beginning to see that.
ADDITUM: My "friends" on my old website certainly have not let me down. More than five days after I penned (what should be my last) blog and yet they are still posting on that blog. Now most people realizing that someone is not planning on posting anymore would typically find new things to do. Oh, not so on this website. It has been a five day onslaught for who can throw the best insult.
For my money, right now, it is between stefffanie (who has been thrown off the site so many times I have lost count) and wallismarsh who apparently has nothing better to do than follow me around on the internet. He even posted my twitter feed, which I barely used and have not posted on for a couple of weeks.
Of course, his goal here (I am assuming) was to show that despite what I said in my blog I am still blogging, thereby catching me in a hypocritical statement. I never said that I was going to stop blogging, just on that site. Naturally, wallis will completely ignore this and continue with his thought process as fact.
The amazing thing about stefffanie is that this person (who is a man going by a girl's name who in the past has claimed that he was a teenage girl that I taught in school, was pregnant, and working at a McDonald's. That all came crashing down one day when he threatened to go to the schoolboard because I was using my computer during class to blog. When I informed him that since he/she was a student of mine he/she should have known there was no school that day, that lie stopped) is just flat out ignorant. Almost every single post from this guy is demanding that I take my blog down. It is not within my power to take my blog down, I can hide it, but my name would still appear on the page. Why would I want to hide it though? These people are so obsessed with me that they are still posting their ugly, hateful language for everyone to see fully five days after I made any comments.
There have also been charges that by quoting wallis on another website, without his permission, I am somehow slandering and libeling him. These people truly have no clue what those two words mean. These are the same characters that believe I have cheated on all my graduate work, because I have included the work of others in my papers. I have tried to explain to them that it is perfectly acceptable to use others' work as long as you cite their work properly. They are too dense or just love to hate me so much that they just can not get their heads around that.
Finally, apparently my words struck home with the Regressive Republican among the group, because he went and posted an entire blog trashing mine and other liberals (remember because he is a Regressive Republican he believes anyone that does not believe exactly as he does is a liberal) beliefs. He got little in the way of what facts he posted in his blog actually right, but do not try to convince him of that:
Every single thing I have said about Obama, has been proven true. You have to stick your head in the sand not to see that Obama is a flaming leftist, and most likely a Communist.
Keep in mind that every time he has posted "facts" and predictions about Obama I have proven him wrong on every single count with verifiable links, however this is what he has to say about facts:
Don't just call me a racist, trying defending the actions of Obama, with facts, not propaganda.
This is the true mind of a Regressive Republican. They do not want to be bothered by the facts and they certainly do not EVER want to admit to being wrong, so what do they do? Any facts they offer you are simply propaganda.
He also mentions that many of my "friends" (I don't know who he is talking about, it's just another one of his blanket statements) have wished for his death and wondered if he ever lured little girls into his semi (that he drives across federally paid for roads). I do remember instances of that happening in the past. I personally flagged those comments.
The mind of a Regressive Republican. You have to love them.
Oh and for my "friends" still over at the Gazette. I hope you have enjoyed this recent addendum. I know you click on wallis' link on a daily basis. Good day to you, and happy trolling.