Saturday, September 18, 2004

BlogsforBush---what a bunch of pussies!

So I posted a comment on http://www.blogsforbush.com/ , and I got this message:

Your comment has been received. To protect against malicious comments, we have
enabled a feature that allows your comments to be held for approval the first
time you post a comment. I'll approve your comment when convenient; there is no
need to re-post your comment.


The funny thing was that my comment actually made reference to Bush's little loyalty oath thingy, and the above kinda made me think that that sort of stuff is just par for the course for these pricks. Confused, I had a look at the FAQ section and came across this:

Q. Will comments ever be deleted or edited?
A. Any comments deemed inappropriate by a member of the Blogs For Bush Team
will either not be published (if posted by an unregistered commenter) or
deleted. Because registered commenters have their comments published
immediately, these comments may be edited or deleted. Varying opinions are
welcome. However, Blogs For Bush reserves the right to maintain order and
respect within the blog's comment threads. Comments that will be considered for
deletion include (but are not limited to):
Anonymous comments, and/or
comments posted without a valid e-mail address.
Demeaning comments towards a
member of the Blogs For Bush Team or another person leaving a comment.
Deliberately off-topic or nonsensical comments.
Multiple postings of the same comment in various comment threads.
Comments with a gratuitous amount of objectionable words or that
constitute flaming.
Comments containing links to objectionable
material.
Comments made questioning the comment policy or the
moderators for enforcing the policy. (All questions on the comment
policy
should
be sent to the Moderator.
)
Comments reported to a member of Blogs for
Bush as being inappropriate or offensive.
Unnecessary contiguous comments in
the same thread will either be edited or deleted.
Comments considered
libelous or offensive.
Any comments considered to be troll activity.
Comments that are merely cut-and-paste jobs will be edited. If you want to
refer people to an article on another site you may link to it, but not post in
full in the threads.
...and other comments we deem inappropriate for the
site.
The comment policy is nonnegotiable. The decision made by any of the
moderators is final.

Q. Will you ban people from commenting on Blogs for Bush?
A. Yes. If someone repeatedly displays behavior showing a lack of interest
in reasonable discussion, or repeated offenses of any of the criteria listed in
the answer of the previous question, we will not hestitate to ban people from
commenting on this site or refuse to publish their comments.

Q. Is that censorship?
A. No. This is not an attempt of censorship. This is about maintaining
respect and order on Blogs for Bush. We try and maintain a higher level
of debate and discussion
that some people just don't appear to be
interested in at all. This is not an attempt of homogenize the comment threads
of Blogs for Bush. One can easily view the comment threads here and discover
differing opinions are indeed welcome. Blogs For Bush prides itself for it's
welcoming of diverse opinions, unlike suchs blogs as the DNC's Kicking Ass, The
Kerry-Edwards Official Blog and Howard Dean's Blog for America, which have been
known to delete comments presenting opposing views. Commenters who appear
interested in reasonable debate and discussion will not be deleted. However, we
will not let this site's comment threads be reduced to inappropriate, childish
and offensive fighting.

Right, so the first thing to notice about all this stuff is that it is totally arbitrary and effectively means that they are going to remove anything that they don't like. And the reference to comments that question said policy as inappropriate is just classic. But more importantly, I couldn't help but wonder if the stated aim of this policy, "maintain[ing] a higer level of debate and discussion", is for real or just there for window dressing. There's one way to find out. Let's have a look at some of the comments posted on this site.

For are first example we don't have to go to the comments section at all, we can just look at what one of the contributors posted:

Liberals,
can we call them anti-American now?


To answer your question: of course you can call us anti-American, you anti-American fascist fuck. But this is truly elevated indeed.

Here's more:

Have they mustered a firing squad? When's the date of the execution for these
two gentlemen?


I'd hate to see the level of discourse denegrate from such a high bar.

Here's one:

They let people Like this reprouduce???


Yeah...I say the same thing everytime I drive through the Midwest.

You know, I don't think they're trying very hard to keep an elevated level of discourse. I think they're just a bunch of pussies.