Journal Simon Brooke's Journal: The US: the largest lunatic assylum on the planet? 1
I've been moderating again this morning. Or at least, I've been trying to. In the end I just gave up. It isn't worth it, and I find I don't even know how to do it.
The discussion? this one. As one relatively sane participant put it:
Every year we get another story or two like this and they still have their hands over their ears going "LA LA LA - I CAN'T HEAR YOU."
How right he was. We find posters claiming:
- Warmer temperatures will be better (and are needed to save our economy)
- It's been happening for 50,000 years, it's nothing to do with us and it doesn't matter anyway
- It's happening on other planets as well so it can't be our fault
- Polar bears drowning is nothing to do with us
- Global warming is not a threat to nature
- Who needs polar bears anyway?
- Send them to Antarctica
- 'natural selection will simply start choosing bears better at swimming...'
- Come to sunny Manitoba
- La la la! I can't hear you!
With people like this, what hope is there for rational discussion? They're all completely, raving, off their trolleys, certifiable crazies! Am I suppose to think any of this is insightful? Interesting? Informative? It isn't trolling or flamebait - they really believe these things. It certainly isn't funny.
When a bunch of people get sufficiently divorced from reality, moderation simply becomes meaningless. I just give up. The whole United States seems to be one big lunatic asylum. And the lunatics have taken over.
Jesusland (Score:2)
I'm afraid that with the advent of the Straussian Text [frontpagemag.com], we now have a generation of politicians who believe that language is reality [slashdot.org], that all is political, and policy can be reduced to an analysis of interest groups.
This mode of analysis began with Marxism, but it was only a matter of time before it would cross over to the right.