Reading the Trolls

Troll infections seem to come in clusters. Often frustrated trolls will assume multiple identities so that they can get in another word before they're identified and locked out or perhaps they enlist other trolls down at the International Brotherhood of Morons hall to join them, but they do arrive, each one confident and bright-eyed and sure that some totally irrelevant and baseless observation will cause great consternation amongst the 'Libtards.'  Sure that they can get away with posing as wise and informed and superior as a brown shirt in a beer hall.

I used to have a Shi-Tzu; 12 pounds and elderly, he never hesitated to go after pit bulls and dobermans, pawing the ground and snarling, leaving me to sort the matter out with the usually laughing owner of the other dog. He never learned.  He never could. He was a dog and driven by a dog's instincts. Humans could laugh and drag the animals apart.

But that was in the real world.  The blog world exists in the dark where both the bystanders and those who hold the leashes are invisible. Whence cometh our help?  Don't look up, there's nobody there.  So the guy who shows up under some assumed name, thinking himself a political lion, wearing his Tea Party Ghost Shirt and weighing in with a 97 IQ never has the opportunity to feel shame or hear the laughter directed at his idiocy. As far as the dog was concerned he won every "debate."

Even the pathetic 12 year old with a spray can and a backwards hat can, however briefly, see his initials on the boxcar or warehouse wall. The troll doesn't always have that pleasure unless of course we give it to him by making  the mistake of taking him seriously enough to explain why his treasured contribution is wrong. His only purpose is that brief feeling of significance he gets from making you angry. Reply and he wins. Treat him with dignity and respect and you lose. He's a troll.

Prove him wrong and his argument false?  That's usually, as the inimitable Arnold would say, a Big Mistake, because of course, you can't refute tags like "Obama is a turd" by any rational means, nor can one convince the Klansman or the village idiot that a spray painted swastika on a synagogue isn't just hilarious.  One can only delete, paint over the grafitti before the troll's friends get to admire the shit stains.

More problematic than the "taggers" are trolls who have bought the little red book, full of slogans and shibboleths, talking points and lies so rank and septic you just can't resist that all too easy seeming shot to the head.  They may appear on the surface to be amenable to an easy and irrefutable proof of their error, but it's a trap because one is, in essence, arguing with a zombie -- a mindless program consisting of  countless IF THEN GOSUB routines (for those of you who remember FORTRAN) which take each unassailable observation, every brass bound QED, every thermonuclear refutation and return some irrelevant reply that steers your argument out into the back alley by the dumpster where the thugs lurk.

"No sir, the Blue Cross policy you buy through the ACA does not have hidden provisions to murder your grandmother and prevent your doctor from removing that infected appendix."  Easy to prove, but suddenly you find yourself  arguing about how denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions is what Jefferson devoutly wished for America and how Hitler used guaranteed access to health care to gas the Jews and how Obama is a Muslim, Communist, illegal alien and you're in a labyrinth where every branch has a thousand branches and a Minotaur at every turn.  Health care reform is the worst thing ever to happen in America and worse than Slavery, and Obama will eat your children. They're hear to shout that and not to argue with you.

Annoyed and frustrated trying to prove that A times B equals B times A to a senile Shi-Tzu with cataracts and poor hearing?  That's what the Tea Party is all about; reading Doctor Suess to Congress and blaming the Democrats for not ignoring the law.  Losing the chess game and turning over the board.  Starting a one legged blind man as quarterback and then kidnapping the referee until he "cooperates" with your "negotiation."

The one reason I enjoy The Swash Zone is the comment section and the regular participants. The reason I want to quit, to move to some remote Caribbean cottage with no internet, is the comment section.

TV shows like The Walking Dead have become the metaphor for the Idiot's Crusade and worse -- at least the zombies are independently devoid of brains and full of destructive rage.  The Republican insurgents are being directed, used, sent out like biological weapons to destroy Democracy for a purpose. It's a zombie apocalypse and there are just too damned many of them and more all the time.  Reading the trolls, writing the same things after all this time, getting nowhere leads me inexorably to that one overwhelming question:  Belize or Dominica?