An Old-Fashioned Flame War Reminds Me That The Left Can Be As Bad As the Right

A perfect post for Insecure Wednesday.   It was late last April when pro-Palestinian protests were happening at colleges.  Former MST3K writer/performer and current Rifftrax writer/performer Bill Corbett made a post lauding someone for complaining about Biden.  I made what I thought was a pretty inane response.  And then it was on!

For about six or seven hours it was kinda like an old-fashioned flame war on the ATT Usenet group or writers.net.  What it illustrated to me was people on the left will use the same bullying tactics as people on the right.  So it's the rare time you can shout, "Both sides!"

Here's the offending material:

As Bernie would say, I don't think it's a radical idea to point out that in the end when it comes to November you have two choices:  you hold your nose and vote for Biden or you "protest vote" or stay home and help Donald Trump.  I mean this is literally what happened in 2016.  It's something I really don't want to see happen again just because whiny liberals are mad that Biden isn't the perfect human--as if any leader ever in history has been.

And yeah, I get it, the situation in Palestine sucks.  I for one wish we'd kick Netanyahu's ass out of office.  I do wish we'd stop giving him weapons to use to blow up hospitals and schools and indiscriminately murder old people, women, children, the handicapped and everyone else who can't possibly be a terrorist.  But you know what, when it gets to November I'm left with those two choices:  Biden or Trump.  That's the unfortunate reality of the two-party system.  It's very unlikely that will change by November.

Anyway, it didn't take long before I was under heavy fire for stating the obvious.  There were some who just whined naively that they shouldn't have to pick the lesser of two evils or Biden should earn their vote or whatever.  As if they completely forgot 8 years ago.  Some others attempted logic like, "I didn't vote in 2016 and Hillary still won my state."  Well la-dee-dah.  Or someone who claimed to have been in the hospital that day.  Um, so?  What's that supposed to prove?

But it pretty quickly devolved into stupid insults.  Just like in old flame wars people would make insults based on nothing really.  My profile pic only shows like a quarter of my head but that didn't stop people from calling me names for being overweight and even being white--and of course those making the insults didn't have profile pics of themselves.  A couple made fun of my blog without reading any of it and my writing career though of course they've sold a combined 0 books ever.  And probably haven't even written a book.

One person said I sounded like I was screaming at my monitor.  Uh-huh.  I mean does that post above sound like "screaming" to you?  I didn't use exclamation points, all caps, or curse words--Corbett was actually the one who cursed at me.  So who sounds like he's "screaming?"  But the obvious tactic is to try to make it seem like you're the lunatic and they're the nice, good, sane ones.  That's another tactic from long, long ago but these kids probably thought they had come up with something clever.

It was pretty sad to see liberals acting just like Trump supporters.  I mean, aren't liberals supposed to be open-minded?  But if you don't agree with some of them, even just a little bit, they start attacking and bullying.  They basically say, "He isn't one of us, get him!"  And then start chasing with pitchforks and torches.

Early on it was obvious they couldn't attack what I said so they just attacked me.  As if lowering the standing of someone with 0 real followers would matter.  I'm not sure what the point was; if they thought they could make me run away crying, well, I'd been in flame wars before they were probably even born.  I've had lots better insults thrown my way then most of their crap.

There were a couple who milked it longer than others.  One I think really got mad because he humblebragged about watching an MST3K marathon all day at work.  Like that made him some big superfan of Corbett.  I pointed out I was watching Rifftrax at the moment.  Since that's Corbett's actual job at the moment, I was actually supporting him better than this dude.  I think that's when he got more personal in his attacks.  For some bizarre reason he called me "Vin Diesel" because I guess to him every bald white guy is the same even if they're fat and wear glasses?  Then he promised to mute me but came roaring back until I finally taunted him, "What's the over/under on your posts until you ignore me?"  Then he finally shut up.

This other one started by saying I should stop using my dad's phone.  I told him my dad died in 2009.  Maybe then he'd express some sympathy or at least say, "That sucks?"  Nope, he just kept pushing by saying, "that was 15 years ago. stop acting like a third grader."  Because I guess pointing out the reality of our 2-party system is what third graders do?  This was obviously an asshole without any shame or empathy--like a Trump supporter.  He didn't like it when I pointed that out and could only whine, "don't you have any original ideas?"  So he must get that a lot.  Well, if you do, then maybe it's because it's true.  He kept going for a while and then for some reason posted a picture of this saying he was going to send it to me:

I guess he thought that would offend me because I'm such a religious person.  I posted back this picture from my bookshelf:

Then he whimpered something about not putting "Alt Text" on it and muted me.  That was it.  Except the next morning there were a couple of latecomers.  I didn't even read their crap; I just muted it.  I mean you have to know when the fight is over.  Otherwise it's like rushing onto the field after both teams and the fans have already gone home.

I'm not sure what the point really was for those who kept coming back for more.  They should have just been like their fellows and used a meme or made some lame one-liner like, "PT = Piss Takes."  Which sounds like a good name for the blog:  Piss Takes With PT Dilloway.  You think Blogger would censor that?  Those lame barbs are pretty easy to ignore and I only muted them much later just so none of that junk showed up on my feed.  The ones who keep coming back, though, were they expecting me to break down and cry?  Or apologize?  Or lose my temper and say something that they could report to Bluesky?  Or was it some game of chicken where they'd "win" if they muted/blocked me before I muted/blocked them?  In which case they lost.  So...

Anyway, as usual I doubt any minds were changed.  Lots of people got muted and/or blocked.  I got blocked by Corbett, which is kinda neat in a way to get blocked by an F-list celebrity.  In the end it's a good illustration that there are nasty bullies on both sides.  And both sides will use the same tactics online.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I'm a liberal and I can be a bully, though I'd say I only do it in self-defense.  Like in this case.  I didn't attack anyone in particular--at least until they attacked me.  It makes me sad though because I want to think I'm an outlier not in the norm.  Like Charles Barkley said, "I'm not a role model."

Getting back to my main point, in November there really is no way to get out of it with your hands clean and morality intact.  It's almost always shades of gray, not black-and-white.  Though I'd say it's kind of medium gray vs black this time.  (And for any smart asses, Trump is obviously the black.)  A lot of the people in this fight really want to think they can make Biden pay without helping Trump, but such is not the case.  If Trump wins, Biden is probably not going to suffer a whole lot.  He'll just go back to Delaware or wherever and retire for however many years he has left.  Like with 2016, it's others who suffer for your protest vote or nonvote:  women, gays, transgender people, etc.  

Like so many people who owe money to where I work, a lot of these people want to think they have some control of this unfair system, but they really don't.  Even choosing not to actively participate doesn't mean you're not part of the system.  It sucks even for F-list celebrities to realize they aren't that powerful.  You can block me, but you can't block the truth.