I always read comments. I also try to ignore them. That's an odd combination on the surface, but for professional and practical reasons I have to resist the urge to get in back-and-forths that will eat up a lot of time that would take me away from the things I get paid to do.
And I learned about ten years ago that in the case of trolls it is absolutely not worth it under any circumstances to engage with them.
If that read like a caveat, it is.
I've never been more floored by the stupidity of a comment that was posted over on Facebook today, and it merits some attention:
I should never be surprised by the level of historical ignorance (much of it willful) one finds among people like this, but this literally took the air out of the room when I read it. That's how stupid it is.
Let's ignore the really obvious problem that there was this thing called Organized Crime that was imported to the United States by immigrants from Sicily and mainland Italy and eventually grew into one of the most violent and rapacious criminal enterprises in the history of human societies. Let's ignore the many 19th Century Irish immigrants who rose from the lowest rungs on the social ladder to take control of and abuse with every manner of graft and corruption known the political machinery of many of our biggest cities.
Let's ignore all the people who hopped on a steamer to the U.S. because the law was after them and in that era traveling across the Atlantic was effectively the same thing as disappearing into the mist. Let's ignore all that. Instead let us focus on the concerted effort by Galleanists – Italian anarchists who became infamous when two of their ranks, Sacco and Vanzetti, were executed for a twin homicide that they in all likelihood did not commit – to bring about the collapse of the American government by exploding truly enormous homemade bombs and killing people by the dozens. I think today we call this terrorism.
Starting in 1916 with the Preparedness Day Bombing in San Francisco (10 killed), Italian anarchists led by a radical named Luigi Galleani (hence "Galleanists") orchestrated a sustained and organized campaign of murder and terror across the entire United States. In 1917 a bomb killed 9 policemen in Milwaukee. In June 1919, 25 dynamite bombs were mailed to major American political figures and judges, with one fatality. The 1920 Wall Street bombing involved a weapon of such size that not only were 38 people killed but damage to buildings like Federal Hall can be seen even today. Anarchist activity subsided briefly due to the Palmer Raids, but resumed with a wagon-sized bomb targeting the judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and the 1933 assassination attempt on FDR (which left one person dead) by an Italian anarchist who, admittedly, may not have been all there in the head.
Wait, there's more.
In 1916 a Galleanist working in a hotel kitchen attempted to fatally poison the guests at a civic banquet and managed only to badly sicken 100-plus people. Also in 1916 an Italian anarchist stabbed a Boston policeman who responded to a large bomb that had just been detonated. Sacco and Vanzetti, it bears noting, almost certainly did not commit the murder for which they were convicted, they did have extensive ties with Galleanist bomb-makers Carlo Valdinoci and Mario Buda, and substantial evidence exists to connect at least Vanzetti to bomb-making in relation to several of the attacks listed here.
But since Italians are white people and they go to church a lot and love their mothers it makes sense to overlook the fact that a non-trivial minority of those who came to the United States did intend to "destroy our way of life" and/or enrich themselves through murder and pillage. Before you can even say "Not all Italians!" you've uncovered the base hypocrisy of supporting restrictive immigration today because someone who might want to kill people might sneak in with the thousands of people who just want to live where they won't get hit by mortar shells.
No intention to pick on the Italians in particular here; I just happen to know a lot about the Galleanist movement, so it came to mind as an example. Certainly there are other examples. The point is the breathtaking historical vacuousness required to believe that the phenomenon of some portion of immigrants possibly being shitty people is a new one.
Isaac says:
Castelli, what's that, French? Irish? Polish? Welsh? Oh wait. I see what you did there.
other bill says:
The stupid, it still always burns. Can we make it stop? Or at least make a different place to go… that's NOT FACEBOOK… for people to share things and converse? In a non-stupid manner? Ok, fine, only half-as-stupid?
It'll have a captcha that has you factor a simple quadratic to login, or something like that. Idk…
Andrew Laurence says:
He knows everything about Galleanism except how to spell its founder's name, apparently. Seriously, though, what's so stupid about this comment? Is the idea that every group of potential immigrants and/or refugees contains > 0 violent criminals even controversial? If he was using this fact as an argument for restricting immigrants and/or refugees, I find it most unpersuasive, but on its own it doesn't read stupid or even bigoted. I see way worse comments every day? What about this one made you single it out so strongly?
Andrew Laurence says:
Oh wait. That was your bit. Sorry. The spelling bit is still true, though.
democommie says:
What a country.
I wonder how many of the people who moved here then went back home to visit after becoming successful found out that a lot of folks were, "Meh, who gives a fuck? You couldn't make it in the hood!".
Leon says:
I saw that one, checked her profile, realized she was being serious but probably is more ill–informed than mean, and moved on. It was a stunningly shallow understanding of the world, but I found the comment more boring than infuriating. Thankfully, I can ignore her. Unfortunately she's probably a deeper thinker than the leader of the free world.
Leon says:
Also, four likes? The fuck?! Just sayin
jon says:
My Finnish ancestors often worked illegally in Canada. Great-uncle William and his brother survived as poachers through the Great Depression when they couldn't find work in the mines or whatever the fuck they did in big cities like Fargo. Grandpa married his first cousin, because importing a foreign wife was a better option than finding an in-season deer. My Lithuanian ancestors were a bunch of drunken farmers who still have self-control issues and lots of racists among them, and that's highlighted rather than declined by the fact some of them married black guys and even a Mexican. They might have been Jews in the Old Country, but were definitely solid alcoholic abusive Catholics in Wisconsin. Got to fit in, after all. Salt of the Earth types, every fucking one of them. My parents settled in a racist suburb of Minneapolis and had me. And that's my story and I'm proud of those jerks for leaving lands of few opportunities to find whatever it was they had here. To pull up the welcome mat after them is like saying we are all full of misfits, thank you, go back home. We can at least pretend to be better than that.
HoosierPoli says:
There is no argument against Muslim immigration that can't be copied word for word and backdated 100 years if you simply replace "Muslim" with "Catholic". If you go back 150 years you can replace the word "Catholic" with "German". Etc etc.
The big story here is not the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment but the mysterious, almost inexplicable disappearance of anti-Catholic sentiment from American politics. The thought strikes me that perhaps these two phenomena are not unconnected.
Tim H. says:
I don't practice a religion, so it's not as easy to get excited about different ones, so followers of islam get together once or twice a week and assume uncomfortable postures and listen to speculation over the unseen, somehow doesn't sound so different from here from the locally acceptable varieties. And accepting immigrants isn't really more risky, an asshole or two comes here, vs our native-born assholes, I don't see a lot of difference in the risk, and two hundred years ago, one might have heard more disparaging things about Scots-Irish, or English transportees, as well as the Germans, all of those, and more in my family tree.
Matt says:
I'm 100% in favor of "extreme vetting" if we start by applying it to the Trumpkins.
* Want to turn the US into a Christianist theocracy? GTFO
* Want to turn the US into a white-supremacist dictatorship? GTFO
* Think gay people should be tortured until they turn straight? GTFO
* Do you think of chattel slavery as a noble institution? GTFO
* Are you convinced the Holocaust was faked? GTFO
* Believe that the world was created 6000 years ago by your invisible friend in the sky and that environmental science is a SEKRIT PLOT by the Illuminati to turn people away from Gawd? GTFO
We'd have to open up unlimited immigration to repopulate the place afterwards…
c u n d gulag says:
To the Native Americans left, every group that has come in, has been a terrorist organization.
Tim H. says:
Matt, it might be worth your time to look at how much of the abolitionist movement was propelled by economic concerns, a plantation could suck up most of the "Oxygen" in a county, doing economic damage to the 99%, Grant mentioned this in his autobiography.
Hazy Davy says:
I kind of admire the comment.
I shall work harder to be more stupid. (My son says that's not possible…)
J. Dryden says:
Warning: Pretentious sentiment incoming:
Paradigmatic leaps forward always come at the price of a terrible blow-back.
This is particularly true of leaps forward that depend on technology. (As in: "Look! I found a way to broadcast the human voice at great distances! Think of the communication capabilities we now have!" "Great, great, amazing–say, there's this guy named Hitler who thinks he could really use some of that to get his message out.")
When the internet moved from being a fad to being an essential, I had the squirming sense that we were going to end up paying a cost for all of its (legitimate! non-Luddite, here!) advantages.
And we are, in the form of universal narcissism. Of millions upon millions of voices clamoring to be heard, regardless of whether what they're saying comes from a place of knowledge, or authority, or experience, or wisdom. It's a world in which the bullying ethos of "What, you think you're better'n me?!" runs strong–where merely to have an opinion makes you just as good as everyone else–and maybe better, if you can say it louder.
I'm not being reductionist. I know that there are a LOT of other factors at play. Any time you have huge, huge numbers of people acting like total assholes, there are going to be multiple causes. And not online rottenness is the same: the Lulz-troll is not the same as the alt-righter is not the same as the overreaction addict is not the same as the Gamergater and so on.
But the internet has given us all (yeah, I said "us," because surely I've got a mote in my own eye) a place where the things that used to keep us in the back of the balcony: ignorance, incompetence, shame–some kind of recognized unworthiness to speak of things about which we knew nothing–those things don't exist anymore. Now it's open-mic-night, and we're all stepping up to the stage and letting it all spew out.
And while we might have hoped that this situation would sort itself out–that, just like a series of open-mic-nights, the chaff would eventually fall away, driven by the boos and catcalls, so that eventually the only people onstage would be the ones that the collective had decided were worth listening to–that process isn't happening. Maybe because the boos and catcalls are the same as applause to some people. (A nation of Tony Cliftons! Andy Kaufman, what have you wrought?) Maybe because we're not listening because we're waiting for our own turn at the mic. There's no one answer, of course.
But when someone–like Ed–says something smart, the culture of this world makes its inhabitants respond with "Oh, he talked–now I will talk because I too am important and have thoughts and am just as good because listen to me I'm talking so I must be important."
The ignorance is appalling. So is the racism. So is the misogyny. So is the low cruelty. And that's the price we're paying, and it does matter, because boy howdy can you draw a pretty straight line between that and a president who won election primarily because of a self-importance on 'public affairs' he developed because Twitter told him "Tell the people what you think–you're smarter than those so-called 'experts'. Here–for 140 golden characters, you are the voice of God."
Maybe it's not as bad in other countries/cultures. America's always contained an element of individualistic self-importance that seems to me to outstrip the rest of the world. Somewhere in the Horatio Alger message of 'everyone can be great through hard work which means you're ALREADY great because the hard work will just be an expression of how awesome you are'–somewhere in there is Henry Ford thinking "Man, I know so much about cars–I must be an expert in everything, like how Jews secretly run everything." Bad enough. But now imagine Ford with a Twitter account. Worse. Much, much worse.
I'm rambling, and I'm probably forgetting something important, so I'll stop. Let someone else take the mic.
Ten Bears says:
A less than effecient immagration is perhaps the only thing you folks successfully inherited from our indigenous predicessors here.
postcaroline says:
SCG's comment is stupid but also funny because she thought she was being clever, except she actually sounded like she was paraphrasing lyrics from "One in a Million."
Anyway, this post reminded me of a scene from "Home Movies", a S6 episode of The Sopranos, when Bobby Baccalieri says his grandfather immigrated to the States illegally because of a police record and "anti-government" activity, and he concludes by saying "They oughta build a wall now though." And everyone nods in agreement.
Safety Man! says:
My favorite (In as much as one can about such things) part about the bombing on Wall Street was how quickly they got back to work, investigation be damned, because money. iirc they were back to trading and using the street the next day, so I guess the moral of the story is that even back then, the Wall Street set didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves.
Michael says:
Conservatives are conservative; abusers are abusive.
Major Kong says:
My ancestors sure as heck weren't the best and brightest the old world had to offer.
Plenty of drunks and abusers. Oddly enough I don't know of any who were drunken abusers. I guess we're not "mean drunks" for the most part.
geoff says:
@HoosierPoli, I think we might need to bring back that anti-Catholicism, at least as far as it applies to Supreme Court justices. I had to check and see if Gorsuch is Catholic, and OF COURSE he is. Nice to know ya, Roe!! (Kidding, I HOPE.)
jcdenton says:
@geoff
Evangelicals are significantly more anti-abortion than Catholics are these days (it's flipped in the last 3-4 decades).
Emerson Dameron says:
@Dryden and others interested in the internet as a social phemon:
I just finished This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things by Whitney Phillips, which has some fresh and well-researched ideas on this topic. I recommend it to you.
It was a tip from TeamHuman.fm, which I also find essential for navigating this landscape.
Populism and (((expertise))) have always been at odds. Trump made certain populists feel as though they will be forever immune from embarrassment.
As someone who’s sustained a hell of a lot of embarrassment, it’s hard for me to see a reeking drunk (no matter how superficially happy) without seeing the looming, crushing hangover ahead.
Andrew Laurence says:
@jcdenton: True. It appears that the two groups have more or less merged. I remember the good old days when they hated each other more than either of them hated the rest of us. Now even the KLAN takes Catholics, as long as they accept JC as their personal savior, which I thought most Catholics don't do. I mean, there's nothing to stop a person from declaring him/herself a Catholic and accepting JC as their personal savior at the same time, but that's not a specifically Catholic thing to do.
geoff says:
@jc, of course, and they voted for Trump despite his being a foulmouthed pussy-grabber precisely for that reason.
Kovpakistan says:
Some Islamic terrorists took out some buildings in New York.
Irish people burnt half of New York down during the Draft Riot.
Are you sure we can trust them? Better safe than sorry.
This is why we need to bring back Whacking Day.
geoff says:
(Though why anyone believes anything he says is a mystery to me.)
Mo says:
HoosierPoli –
Self-righteousness is a hell of a drug, adaptable to any circumstance, and a constant money-maker for the pushers.
maurinsky says:
@jcdenton: True. It appears that the two groups have more or less merged. I remember the good old days when they hated each other more than either of them hated the rest of us. Now even the KLAN takes Catholics, as long as they accept JC as their personal savior, which I thought most Catholics don't do. I mean, there's nothing to stop a person from declaring him/herself a Catholic and accepting JC as their personal savior at the same time, but that's not a specifically Catholic thing to do.
The Catholics do worship Jesus, they just like a lot of middle and upper management between their relationship with the trinity.
The Catholics explicitly renounce Satan – I sing in a Catholic church, it's part of the Easter Vigil to renounce Satan, his works, his temptations, etc.
Katydid says:
@JCDenton; except for a fringe minority of whackadoodles, American Catholics are a pretty liberal bunch. As someone who was raised Catholic in a variety of places (military dependent who moved around a lot), I always appreciated the attitude of, "I know the rules, I'm just not going to follow them". Christianity just never spoke to me, so as an adult, I am not a church-goer.
On the other hand, I'm constantly being taken aback by the batshit-insanity of the fundagelicals around me. Also the blatant, outright lies about Catholicism; the connection between the two groups is not an easy one and will break as soon as the fundies get what they want (Christian Sharia law, that is).
carrstone says:
I don't know what you want from us numbskulls out here in the real world. When St Obama of Cherished Memory and his cohorts responded with a sharp intake of breath when we said 'terrorist' and refused to help us find an adjective to name such a person [as talk about them, we must!], we're compelled to find a suitable adjective ourselves. If that offends, well, we're devastated to cause such pain but it's your own fault.
When we castigate Italian criminal types, we call them Mafia. We know the Mafia is a 'by invitation only' club of Italian origin, but we say 'Mafia', not Italian', because we've been given this descriptor – and use it without bias.
So, what can we call the folks who, shouting allahu akbar, fly airplanes into tall buildings, cut off heads willy-nilly, throw queers off buildings? Hmmm? Any suggestions?
April says:
DC – you win the award for my morning chuckle.
skwerlhugger says:
"So, what can we call the folks who, shouting allahu akbar, fly airplanes into tall buildings, cut off heads willy-nilly, throw queers off buildings? Hmmm? Any suggestions?"
Religious
jharp says:
Growing up in northeast Ohio I ma reminded of the mob war circa 1977.
About 46 bombings in Cleveland that year. The most memorable being the bombing that killed Danny Greene.
Brian M says:
Carbunkle is, as is his typical approach, focusing on the trivial and ignoring the big picture. Of course, most people use the word "terrorist".
Now, some of us lefties might not only use the word terrorist, we might expand the use of the word a bit to include people like Carbunkle's hero the Tangerine Menace when he orders massive bombing runs that incinerate civilians.
Just because it is the United States (PBIN) raining terror doesn't mean it's not terrorism. In fact I would posit that it is the warmongers, usually conservative, who are so mealy-mouthed about using the word. "Collateral Damage" is not a liberal term, I would argue.
Brian M says:
And…how has the "real world" policy matrix worked out for you, Carrstone? It seems like all of these trillions has done nothing but made things worse.
Now we have a petulant child who thinks (if you can call it that) that dropping a few BIG BOOMS on people will solve things. Because it has worked so well for the US lately?
Major Kong says:
The problem is when we lump the terrorists in with the other 1.69 billion people that we presumably don't want to fight. Although based on statements from some on the right I'm not so sure about that.
Even George W. Bush was careful to point out that we're not "at war with Islam".
I don't consider myself a military genius but declaring war on 1.7 billion people doesn't sound like a winning strategy to me.
Bill says:
I don't post much and when I do it's usually to be a snarky asshole, but I beg of you, please, please, PLEASE stop feeding the shitty troll.
Really, look at where he comments other than here:
https://disqus.com/by/carrstone/
Washington Times, The American Thinker, NewsBusters, etc. Look at that top comment about how the American public is blindfolded because they ignore the bias of the Supreme Court and the judicial system so why do we even bother with judicial review, hurr-durr.
Engaging carrstone is as sensible or productive as would be logging onto Facebook and attempting to reason with Ms. "Just Sayin" Groesbeck. Same broken brain, same worthless morality, he just knows bigger words and apparently has nothing better to do with his time.
Bill says:
Really, here's his other account, the one he uses when he's not outright trolling but instead just being a dismissive and rude militant atheist fuckwit:
https://disqus.com/by/carrstone02/
Sample:
"Oh, you silly boy, I'm not pointing a finger at god. I'm asking believers, as they are the ones making the claim, where their proof is.
But in a sense you're right. It is a dead end because, as Nietzsche said, god is dead."
democommie says:
"The Catholics explicitly renounce Satan – I sing in a Catholic church, it's part of the Easter Vigil to renounce Satan, his works, his temptations, etc."
Like @ around 4:20 in this?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbYp9oaIT8
Andrew Laurence says:
If 1% of Muslims were militant jihadists, the west would have been destroyed and there would be a worldwide Islamic caliphate in its place.
E* says:
c u n d gulag beat me to it. Immigrants coming to "change our way of life or chop our heads off" were literally the hordes of white people showing up on already occupied lands. Really literally coming to change the ways of lives of people already here, chop their heads off, spread the measles and the smallpox, and any number of other unpleasant terrorist activities. I sure as heck would have been terrified. Especially when the hordes started bringing in additional other (involuntary) immigrants to enslave and also terrify. Jesus.
I fear none of these things from the immigrants who come today.
Pete Gaughan says:
"So, what can we call the folks who, shouting allahu akbar, fly airplanes into tall buildings, cut off heads willy-nilly, throw queers off buildings? Hmmm? Any suggestions?"
Fundamentalists.
The problem is not necessarily Islam, or Christianity, or Judaism. The problem is extremism. The problem is fundamentalism.
carrstone says:
@Pete Gaughan
Even if you're right and fundamentalism is the cancer, I'd still like to know what kind of cancer 'cause treatment is likely to be different for each type.
@skwerlhugger
'Religious' won't do, either. Saying Islam or Muslim is already one more degree of precision closer. And god forbid we should see Ben Affleck over-emote again.
@Brian M
Indeed the word 'terrorist' is in common usage except, which I mentioned before, when Obama was asked for an explanation of a terrorist act – the word never crossed his lips.
@Bill
My Disqus comments? Pretty insightful, I'd say. Deflect much?
democommie says:
Crapptonedeaf:
"My Disqus comments? Pretty insightful, I'd say. Deflect much?"
Well, as you're lyimg there in your sweat–and, ewwwwwwww, whatever that is–soaked recliner smoking your post-orgasmic fatty, you gotta ask yourself, "Was it good for me?", because everybody here is laughing at your performance.
Your "erudition" knows no limit, well, lower limit. Pull your head out of your handlers ass and enjoy the light of objective truth, or don't.
Knox Harrington(Video Artiste) says:
Actually, that comment strikes me as rather mild in comparison to some of the outright racist epitaphs I see regularly.
Kind of surprised that one got you. But, kudos for leaving her name up. If you say shit like that you need to own it.
Knox Harrington(Video Artiste) says:
Actually, that comment strikes me as rather mild in comparison to some of the outright racist epitaphs I see regularly.
Kind of surprised that one got you. But, kudos for leaving her name up. If you say shit like that you need to own it. Cheers
Major Kong says:
If car-stone speaks in a forest, and no one is around to hear, is he still wrong?
http://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2013/04/18/obama-has-mentioned-terrorism/
quixote says:
@HooserPoli: "The big story here is not the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment but the mysterious, almost inexplicable disappearance of anti-Catholic sentiment from American politics. The thought strikes me that perhaps these two phenomena are not unconnected."
Maybe that would be the unexpected downstream benefit to discovering that one the new rocky planets found light years away has intelligent life. (By the pollution signature in the atmosphere, for instance.) Canny leaders could finally get everyone working together because aliens!
quixote says:
(So long as there's nobody around but us chickens, I have a suggestion. Maybe the scientists should get together in an airtight conspiracy, you know, like the whole global warming thing, and invent aliens to save us from ourselves? No? Oh well.)
Medium Dave says:
Why, look at that: https://youtu.be/Qu4LYTYlY8M . President Obama has said the word "terrorist" plenty of times. He refused to say "Islamic terrorism", and I think his reasons were doing so were perfectly sound.
geoff and jcdenton: A blogger that I used to read pointed out that Republicans like to appoint Catholic judges to the supreme court because Catholicism is seen as having a respectable intellectual tradition, while being socially conservative enough to suit them.
carrstone says:
@Medium Dave
How can you come to the conclusion that BO has said terrorist "plenty of times", measured against what criterion?
Au contraire, he didn't say it definitively enough and that lack of leadership reflects in the fact that we don't have a word to describe the current acts of terror and its creators.
What is the applicable equivalent of Mafia, Nazis, Tong, Yakuza, FARC?
democommie says:
Crapptain Fucktastic:
"How can you come to the conclusion that BO has said terrorist "plenty of times", measured against what criterion?"
By actually having some proof of it, you stupid fuck
You, otoh, said:
"I don't know what you want from us numbskulls out here in the real world. When St Obama of Cherished Memory and his cohorts responded with a sharp intake of breath when we said 'terrorist' and refused to help us find an adjective to name such a person [as talk about them, we must!], we're compelled to find a suitable adjective ourselves. If that offends, well, we're devastated to cause such pain but it's your own fault."
based on what? You are a numbskull and a vicious, lying p.o.s.
Another of your blithe assertions:
"When we castigate Italian criminal types, we call them Mafia. We know the Mafia is a 'by invitation only' club of Italian origin, but we say 'Mafia', not Italian', because we've been given this descriptor – and use it without bias."
"Mafia" is actually pretty generic at this point. It's used to refer to other european criminal organizations and a whole slew of non-criminal enterprises. It would have been more accurate for the Italian criminals to be labelled as CATHOLICS, which they all were, afaia. They did allow jews, poles, lithuanians, irish and numerous other nationaliities/ethnicities to work for them but that never confused anyone about who was in charge.
Of course we could label Eric Rudolph, Tim McVey and a bunch of other gooberz with gunz and greivances agin' gummint as what they are–KKKristian Terrorist–but, gosh, that would upset a lot of good, decent GODfearin' xenophobic, misogynistic racist assholes–can't have that can we?
carrstone says:
@democommie
Oh, dear dumbcommie, brevity is the soul of wit.
You haven't, I notice with glee, tried to suggest a likely adjective or even a noun which would help obviate the offensive [or so we're told] use of Muslim or Islam as the perpetrator of acts of terror.
But that's not on the progressive agenda, is it? You need big verbal sticks and face masks to pound the rest of us into submission and here you are, true to type, maligning everyone who isn't you.
democommie says:
CummStain:
You haven't I notice (as is usual for you and your Randhole palz) made any attempt (because you're a lazy, stupid, talkingpoints parroting fuck) to address any of the things I put in my last comment. So suck it, Liberfascist.
"here you are, true to type, maligning everyone who isn't you."
Boy, somebody's fee-fees seem to be butthurt. Boo-hoo. There are numerous commenters on this blog who have never been maligned by me, douchenozzle. I reserve that for fuckbags like you who constantly come to shit in the punchbowl and then go back to jerking off in your mom's basement.
I think it's fair to say that you have a persecution complex.
Not that I believe for a moment that you have any desire to be a decent human being, instead of the smug, hypocritical, lying sack-o-shit that you constantly remind us that you are–but, if you did, there's a simple cure.
If you would like people to have "polite" disagreements with you, try to argue in good faith instead of being the provocateur asshole that you are.
I am not confident of your recovering from your indignorance but, you're not family and I don't need any more friends–so fuck off.
carrstone says:
@dummerstillcommie
Deflect much?
democommie says:
Suffice to say, dumbfuck, you're confusing "deflectiion" with "derision".
Learn how arguments work and then you can have one, moron.
define and redefine says:
From E*:
"c u n d gulag beat me to it. Immigrants coming to "change our way of life or chop our heads off" were literally the hordes of white people showing up on already occupied lands. Really literally coming to change the ways of lives of people already here, chop their heads off, spread the measles and the smallpox, and any number of other unpleasant terrorist activities. I sure as heck would have been terrified. Especially when the hordes started bringing in additional other (involuntary) immigrants to enslave and also terrify. Jesus."
I honestly wonder if this is why we hear this narrative about immigrants these days – "Our folk came over here and decimated the natives, so clearly THEY [Muslims, Mexicans, etc] are coming here to do the same thing to US."
As for the original FB post – assuming that person was referring to Muslim immigrants, it's probably worth mentioning that Muslims have been coming here, forced or otherwise, for literally the entire time the US has been a country (and then some.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States
democommie says:
@ define and redefine:
I saw a piece on Islam on PBS the other day that went into detail about how the arab muslims made a concious decision, sometime around the 11th century, to stop targeting neighboring european countries for slave raids and to go after easier pickings–after de-humanizing their muslim brothers in Africa. Apparently, the Sudanese civil war of recent years is not a case of something new happening, vis-a-vis, the rape of african women by arabic men to make sure that their children are not all african (not even sure if that's the case, these days).
But, yeah, lotsa muslims came here as slaves and were, of course, forced by their gentle, loving Christian OWNERS to renounce their faith–if indeed they were deemed capable of any such lofty practice as HAVING faith.