Aloha.
I believe it has come time to make a diary stating the obvious: that this site has been overrun by insulting trolls who appear to be supporting Barack Obama!
I like Barack Obama. I do think he is a little boring in speeches and gives way too much faith to lawyers, at least in his latest essay to South Carolina University law students, but generally a pretty decent guy. After 8 years as vice president he would probably be ready to lead this country as one of the greatest presidents of all time.
However! What is up with his supporters on this website? Do they really believe that they can catapult Obama to the nomination by trying to "blot out" with insults and ad hominem facts that don't make his campaign look good? Let's take this latest diary as a recent example. Another example would be this diary. The latter diarist actually swore and called any alternative position on this legitimate argument "rightwing bullshit".
Without getting into the merits of what was discussed in said diaries, it appears that Obama supporters are more interested in attacking others with alternative arguments than actually debating them. This, of course, would defeat the purpose of a message board such as this, which I thought is supposed to be to open the lines of communication in order to discuss various aspects of a particular news story or position. I have always been of the opinion that open communication leads to better decisionmaking.
Now, a lot of the Obama supporters are good people on here. I won't mention names since that appears to be against the rules on this site, but let's just say that I have had some interesting discussions on here.
However, there also appears to be a new breed of Obama supporter frequenting these boards, that attempts to silence the opposition by 1) giving troll ratings without legitimate provocation or justification; 2) saying something along the lines of "this is a crap diary" without any ability to state "why" the diarist is or is not making a justified point; 3) Multiple recommendations for comments such as "and your momma too" and 4) a subsequent attempt to discredit non-believers by saying such things as "oh well it looks like there were 242 recommendations and 252 troll ratings for that post so therefore you can see what legs this argument must truly have." - as though herd mentality makes or breaks an argument.
For the last 8 years, we have witnessed the effects of trying to silence an opposition by not giving them a voice for legitimate viewpoints. It's one of the reasons we are in a war for reasons other than what we were told up front (WMD) and one of the main reasons a lot of people are disenchanted with the Bush administration, as if the lying weren't bad enough. I am rather surprised to see so-called progressives on here doing this sort of "lock-step" march as I have witnessed repeatedly on the part of the right-wing zombies over the years. Hence my nickname. No, I will not believe what you are peddling just because you tell me your opinion and to STFU with mine. You will actually have to make a convincing argument based in fact. 42 recommendations telling me to STFU, troll does nothing to convince me.
Several times on these boards I have been accused of the following: 1) being the alias of some formerly-banned jacko who I have never heard of; 2) tag-teaming with a diarist for daring to recommend something which states facts that the Obama people cannot handle. If you guys all want the same viewpoint on here then you should go to barackobama.com, where everyone is a barack obama supporter. More than one time I have seen people such as myself who identify as progressives being "shut down", troll rated and told to STFU for having the stones to say something contrary to the herd. This goes also for diaries that have nothing to do with Obama, such as this poor sap's diary from last night where he was trying to get awareness for some movie which others didn't like. I think he eventually got deleted.
Please inform if this website is intended to be a barack obama lovefest, if contrary positions are not tolerated, or if there is some other reason for coming here which I have not mentioned. My understanding was that the stated purpose of this site was to "get democrats elected".
Don't worry, you will get your chance to troll rate me and shut me up in the tips section below. Maybe a select e-mail to the site administrators will make you feel like you won this battle, but we both know you didn't.