Seriously. Everyone. Get an effing grip. You have an opinion, I have an opinion. In the beauty that is American and with what remains of our free speech, we can each state those opinions and (gasp) they may not even agree!!
I'm seeing some highly uncool things here at Daily Kos and it's being perpetrated by each side in the Candidate Wars. Stop it, damnit. I'll give some examples (without attribution - you can search on a text string if you have a burning desire to read the original comment and responses) over the fold and, hopefully, you'll see how ridiculous this is becoming.
So I was reading through the comments in this recommended diary when I came across this one:
Talk about petty and grasping
This POS diary is posted with the Drudge Report as the original source, and it's recc'd and lauded?
Wow, I've seen it all now.
And right next to it, I saw this:
( 0 / 1- )
I don't really agree with the comment itself, but that does NOT mean that it should have, in a million years, received an HR. Ridiculous. I uprated it just on principle.
Here's another comment I found in another diary:
yet another one on Kool-aid
as far as mocking BO goes, he did an entire stand-up routine mocking her. So much for the saint and his followers and their hypocrisy. The cult lives on.
2 HRs assigned to that one. I don't like the comment. I'm an Obama supporter - and frankly, I find the whole "cult" and "kool-aid" meme tiring and insulting, as though I'm so intellectually simple that some good speechifying sways me, vs. the idea that I'm intelligent and have made my choices based on everything but cult-like behavior and "kool-aid". But you know what? I'm secure in the rationale for my support of Barack Obama. And I don't think that comment was worthy of an HR. It was the same general, tired (in my opinion) attack from a non-Obama person, but it didn't rise to the level of giving it an HR.
Then there's this one, found it this diary:
Read the entire article - Kristol nails it
Kristol exposes Obama for what he is - the self annoited messiah of our self loathing nation whose only recourse is to elect Obama and thereby let us feel good about ourselves again. I usually can't stand Kristol, the self rightgeous git that he is, but he absolutely exposes Obama for who he is and unless we wake up soon, we are in for another defeat in november.
Read the entire article please!
TWELVE HRs. 12! WHAT about this comment was HR-worthy? Good grief.
One more, from this diary:
he won't wear an american flag pin on his lapel,
but he'll gladly play dress-up in other countries. how shameful, is what the republicans will say.
they'll also say that he and his wife have repeatedly demonstrated their animosity toward America. first, by not wearing "that" pin, then by not putting your hand over heart when pledging, then by saying that this is the "first time" in your "adult live" that you've been proud of the country.
the funny thing is that obama thinks these attacks aren't a big deal. let's not forget, we're in the middle of two war. if people begin to buy into the idea that he's unpatriotic, he's done in the GE.
4 HRs. Again - to be clear - I'm not supporting the POV expressed in this comment. But there is NOTHING hide-worthy about it. There's a jumping off point in this comment that allows anyone to reply either endorsing it or offering an alternate viewpoint. It should NOT be hidden.
Here are a few I DO think warranted hiding:
BEFORE Ohio
Let's get the Hillary turd flushed down the toilet so we can get down to the business of destroying McCain.
--| snip |--
Hillary Clinton
is a god damn bitch. This sorry excuse for a human being has now destroyed the democratic party.
Hillary you can go straight to hell!
--| snip |--
Please
go fuck yourself
The reason these three comments got HR'd should be obvious (I pulled these from the hidden comments
Look. This is a progressive website with a wide array of viewpoints and a (now) clear delineation between who supports Clinton vs. who supports Obama. There are a host of viewpoints on Clinton's relative positives and negatives, and an equal host of them on Obama's positives and negatives.
If you're HRing ANYTHING you find not to be in support of your candidate, you're squelching valuable discourse that can inform, sharpen, and solidify arguments and counter-arguments. Not to mention - you're abusing the ratings system. Did someone piss you off in another thread with a justifiably HR'd comment and now you're HRing them every time you see them? GET OVER IT. Everyone is entitled to a bad day and a bad comment and following another user from thread to thread dropping HRs on them is ratings abuse (I see this rampantly in the hidden comments, folks).
Moreover - if YOU are doing this and doing it frequently and you and I support the same candidate for the Democratic nomination, you need to know - you aren't doing "our" side any favors. At all. This nomination will, sooner or later, be determined. And one thing I know with absolute certainty: one of the two candidates will NOT get the nomination and one of them WILL. Pretty simple. When that happens, we'll all need to pivot - as the campaigns themselves will do - and focus on the general election. That's going to be difficult to do if we're constantly pissing HRs on each other.
I'm NOT saying don't write a diary about what Hillary Clinton said in a speech she gave that you found offensive or distorting or don't write a diary about a direct mail flyer sent by the Obama campaign that you find inaccurate and unfair. Write your diaries. Read comments - respond to them. But for Christ's sake...
BE RESPECTFUL and GROW UP.