Wright Answers the Mail and Dispenses Timely Advice

I’ve been busy.

I’ve got several essays in progress, but just haven’t had a chance to complete any of them.

I’ve also let the mail pile up.

Between the blog’s general email account and messages from the various social media sites that I’m active on, the mail amounts to quite a bit.

So if you wrote me a nice, sane, reasonable message and didn’t get an answer, apologies.  I’ll answer some of those here.

If you sent me frothy missives filled with piss and poison toads and you didn’t get an answer, well, about that: I know you put a lot of effort into your rage and I appreciate it, I do,  but I probably deleted your message unread, because, like your mom, frankly I just don’t care about you.

And on that note:

Advice to Bloggers: each week I get mail from folks who want to start a political blog or who run political blogs and want to know how I deal with trolls, jerks, idiots, assholes, haters, baiters, cranks, lunks, skunks, and the various and sundry lunatics who inevitably show up in such places.

I would think that by now how I deal with these people should be obvious: I don’t.

Each week, I also get mail from folks concerned or angry about the Draconian way in which I handle comments here on Stonekettle Station.

Usually these messages are from people who acted like a screechy poo flinging monkey and got their comment deleted. However, sometimes these message are from concerned readers who seem to think that in the interest of “fairness” I should allow and even encourage the deranged monkeys to fling their crap on Stonekettle Station.

You want to see shit flinging? Go to the zoo.

It’s not my job to fix the jackasses.

I’m not the government. I’m not required to respect the bullshit arbitrary edicts of some ridiculous Neolithic religion, or the bullshit arbitrary edicts of extremist politics, or crazy conspiracy theories, or slack-jawed booger-eating stupidity, or deliberate ignorance, or raging incoherent hate.

I’m under no obligation, expressed or implied, to allow the screechy monkeys a platform to fling shit from – especially at me.

Unfair?

Yeah, so?

Learn how to behave. Learn how to  reason. Learn how to act like adult. Learn how to disagree without being a dick. Learn how to walk upright and shower and talk without spitting at people, learn how to write, learn how to frame a logical argument, learn how to spell, learn how to use words in the proper context. Learn how to take ownership of your opinion instead of just flinging some other brain damaged baboon’s dirty shit at me.

You want respect? Then you’ve got to give respect in the first place. That’s how it works around here.

These are good rules for life in general, not just for the internet.

Oh, yes, one other thing: if your deity doesn’t like how I do things, he’s welcome to tell me himself in person (providing he presents proper identification. Cash in small bills, no checks), I won’t entertain any self-appointed middleman. Try it, and I’ll turn the hose you.

Folks, say it with me: You cannot reason with unreasonable people.

You cannot reason with unreasonable people.

You cannot reason with people who are determined to be jackasses, attempting to do so will give you stomach cancer. I don’t want cancer, that’s why I quit smoking.  Arguing with an Internet troll is the equivalent of smoking, it might give you some momentary pleasure but it stinks up the room and sooner or later it’ll ruin your cardiovascular system. You can’t argue with a fanatic. You will never make a Creationist or a Birther or a 911 Truther or an Anti-Vaxxer or a moon landing denier see reason (I do, however, admit that in the later case I’m partial to the Aldrin Response, though it’ll probably get you talked about).  If these people were capable of reason, they wouldn’t be Creationists, or Birthers, or Truthers, or Anti-Vaxxers, or Deniers in the first place.

 

Edit: Some of you asked about an essay I penned a while back on the subject of unreasonable people: it’s here.

 

I refuse to give these people a platform.

They’re not being denied their rights in any way, they can always start their own website or write letters to the editor or stand on a street corner shouting at the clouds or get themselves elected to the Texas legislature. But I don’t have to listen to their nonsense and I’m not going to facilitate inflicting this dreck on anybody else either.

And that works for me.

You? You want to write about politics? Great. Terrific. Welcome to the party, I hope you wore old clothes. My advice to those of you thinking about starting your own blog, be it about politics or knitting or fluffy cotton-candy bunnies, is this: decide in advance what your goals are.  If you’re just looking for hit counts, start a porn site.  If you’re looking for a screechy four-handed shitfest, write for The Blaze or the Huffington Post.  But if you want to write about politics and you want to attract and keep an intelligent, thoughtful, and reasonable audience (a damned rare and unique thing on the internet nowadays) then you are going to have to take responsibility for managing the conversation. This isn’t any different than being the host of a party, you can either put up with the kind of shenanigans that lead to drunken frat boys pissing in the azaleas and knocking holes in your plaster and assaulting your other guests or you can toss the louts out on their ear. 

Decide in advance what kind of get-together you’re throwing and make the rules clear right up front and don’t be shy about enforcing them.

Also, if you’re going to write about politics, you’d probably do well to grow a thick skin.

If you’re the kind of person who will let the hate mail get to you, you’re not going to last very long. Seriously, go with the porn thing, everybody likes that. You can thank me later. 

On the other hand, if you begin to regard the hate mail as some kind of validation, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Here’s the bottom line: A blog is a mirror. The world is full of moronic unreasonable haters, but it’s also full of thoughtful reasonable intelligent people too – the type of audience you attract as a political blogger very likely reflects which end of the spectrum you yourself belong on. 

You might want to give that some thought.

 

Moving on to selected questions from the rest of the mail:

 

________

 

Army Major Hasan, thoughts? Comments?

I think he’s an asshole.

Do you think it was terrorism?

Call it workplace violence, call it terrorism, call it treason, call it a ham sandwich, I don’t care. He’s an asshole. Bottom line, a rabid dog mauls a member of your family, you don’t argue over what to call it, you just take the beast out back and shoot it.

What do you think should happen to him?

I’m not a big fan of the death penalty, but in Hasan’s case I think he’s more than earned it. It seems like a no-brainer to me.  The facts aren’t in dispute. Hasan killed thirteen people in cold blood, deliberately and on purpose. The Army wants Hasan dead. Hasan’s victims and their families want him dead. Hasan himself wants Hasan dead. Seems like we have a quorum. All in favor say “Aye.”  The ayes have it. Roll his miserable crippled ass out back, no camera, no speeches, no last words, and put a bullet in his head, ship the body home to his family COD. They don’t want it? Fine, have the Navy sink his ass at sea next to Osama bin Ladin and hose down the deck to get rid of his stink. Done.

Isn’t that what he wants?

Who cares what Nidal Hasan wants? Fuck him, he gave up his right to have any say in his fate the minute he fired the first shot. What he wants and what he doesn’t want is irrelevant other than it happens to align with the general consensus. And really, Hasan admitted his guilt and wants to die … so, out of some perverse sense of spite we’re not going to kill him?  Boy, I sure hope he’s never read Br’er Rabbit, “Please, Your Honor, whatever you do, don’t find me innocent and let me go free! Boy, I sure wouldn’t want that! Don’t throw me into the briar patch! No sirree!”  

Yeah, but won’t he become a martyr?

Martyrdom is overrated. A dozen of these assholes blow themselves up every week. How many of them do you remember? How many terrorist armies do you see rallying around their names? Brainwashed fanatics like Hasan are too goddamned stupid to see that they’re nothing but cannon fodder for the terrorist leaders, that’s why they fell for this martyr horseshit in the first place. You don’t see any of the big Islamic extremists becoming martyrs themselves do you? Not voluntarily anyway. And once they’re gone, nobody even remembers their names – other than their sobbing mothers that is. We killed Osama Bin Laden and tossed his body into the ocean, see any giant terrorist monuments to his martyrdom? Nidal Malik Hasan? Who the hell is that? Just another asshole. He wants to be a martyr? Fine by me.

 

________

 

What do you think of Bradley Manning’s apology? Does that change your opinion of him?

Manning apologized?

So did Ariel Castro, so did Bernie Madoff, so did Jim Baker, did that change your opinion of them?

 

________

 

I’m surprised you didn’t say something about Putin giving Edward Snowden asylum in Russia. I figured you’d be all over that.

What’s to say? You didn’t think Russia was going to hand Snowden over did you?

You did?

You’re so darned cute.

Ask yourself something, Russian IT guy working for the Kremlin steals umpity dozen gigabytes of information regarding the Russian Security Service’s ongoing espionage program directed by the Russian Government against its own citizens (well, of course the Russians have such a program, don’t be daft). The guy escapes to Reagan National in Washington DC with Russian agents hot on his trail and demands political asylum in the name of freedom and democracy for Russian citizens.  How do you think that would play out? Think we’d send him back?

Call it irony.  Snowden denounces the American government’s domestic spying program, seeks asylum in Cuba and Venezuela, ends up in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Maybe Putin will spot him a couple tickets to the next Pussy Riot concert.

 

________

 

This is Miss Lukas willson from Trinidad &Tobago.I am writing from the hospital in Cote D'Ivoire, therefore this mail is very urgent as you can see that I am dying in the hospital. I was told by the doctor that I was poisoned and has got my liver damaged and can only live for some months. I inherited some money ($2.5 Million) from my late father and I cannot think of anybody trying to kill me apart from my step mother  in order to inherit the money, she is an  Ivorien by nationality.

Seriously, how do people still fall for the Spanish Prisoner scam?

And do they know that they’re fucking up the internet for everybody else?

 

________

 

House Republicans, did you see that they voted to repeal Obamacare for like the 40th time? WTF?

The Tea Party called it a symbolic vote.

Apparently it symbolizes suicide.

Look at it this way, if they’re voting to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act at least they’re not screwing up something else.

Between this nonsense, sequestration, and threatening another government shutdown, the next couple of election cycles ought to be fairly entertaining.

Speaking of upcoming elections, I see that the RNC is demanding that CNN cancel its upcoming biopic on Hillary Clinton or else they won’t allow CNN to broadcast the 2015 republican primary debates. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said they feel that the mainstream media is biased … so, apparently he thinks that the way to make the media impartial is for political committees to dictate what they can and cannot broadcast.

Because, yeah, we don’t have enough material for more facepalm demotivational posters already.

 

________

 

Hi Jim Wright! I’ve emailed several times but you haven’t responded, what’s up with that? LOL! love love love stonekettle and I’ve read all the rules LOL! Anyway, I think we would make a great team. I’ve written a bunch of blogs that your readers would love please tell me how to post them to stonekettle.com!

I haven’t responded? How odd. I’ll look into that.

________

 

How about that Obama Rodeo Clown guy, can you believe that?

Can I believe that a bunch of inebriated rednecks with pigshit between their toes at some half-assed state fair in Missouri hate Barack Obama?

Man, I totally didn’t see that coming.

 

House Republican Steve Stockman invited the Obama Rodeo Clown guy to perform in Texas!

Speaking of clowns.  Again, I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

People, please, it’s Texas.

It’s Steve Stockman, you know, the same Steve Stockman who invited Ted Nugent to the last State of the Union address. You were expecting what exactly from this assclown? 

 

Yeah, but…

Please.

It was a clown.

It’s a rodeo.

It’s a crowd of drunken rednecks at a rodeo watching a clown in a rubber mask of the president – of course they cheered and laughed.

These yahoos would have cheered if the clown had been wearing a President Romney mask, which he would have been … if Republicans hadn’t lost to Barack Obama, twice.

That’s right, Missouri, who’s laughing now?

 

________

 

You the man, thanks for existing.

Aw shucks.

________

 

libtard cockbite i hope u get aidds and hav to go on oblamercare dikwipe!

Well, so much for the swelled head.

 

________

 

More Pictures of ShopKat!

Shopkat has a low opinion of humans in general and my email in particular.

Plus she’s pointy on five ends, we’d better leave her out of this.

 

________

 

Jim, I love your stuff but what’s with the “your mom” jokes? Don’t you think that’s a little juvenile?

That’s between me and your mom.

 

And that’s going to do it.

I’ll see if I can find the time to finish a couple of these unfinished essays. Maybe put some time into the book I’m working on.

 

You may consider the comments thread an open forum.

Feel free to discuss the topics of your choice. If you’d like to see an essay on a particular subject, you may suggest such and I’ll take it under advisement.

Feel free to ask questions, I might even answer.