Well, maybe not absolutely nothing. They do often make for some great comedy!
A number of the regular commentators on the threads of my favorite Internet hangout, PoliPundit, actually look forward to these lefty clowns popping up from time to time trying to stir up trouble. In fact, PoliPundit may just be the Major Leagues of the trolls vs. troll-killers action. The problem is, most of the trolls who step forth seeking the PoliPundit spotlight are just not up to the task! Most prove feckless, spouting the latest MoveOn, DU, or Kos memes that are easily trounced by facts and logic by a crew of slayers salivating for the next course of troll meat!
An excellent case in point comes from a thread that begins with a typically terrific analysis of the Bush speech last night by the great Lorie Byrd. This link is worthwhile just to read Lorie's fine work, but be certain to grab some popcorn and a soda and stay for the fireworks in the thread that follows!
Enter "maximus," a fitting name for a glorious Roman Gladiator stepping into the main arena of the great Colosseum for his battle royale with the dreaded "Repukes," right? Wrong!
First of all - the name - too easy: From the most glaringly obvious "minimus," to the wickedly clever "gluteus maximus," to my own "maxim(UM-DOOF)us," this is a very poor choice of names for a troll, as it is quickly and most easily twisted around by his foes for maximum comedic effect.
Next, get a load of this poor dimwitted troll's first volley (Comment #7):
Yawn. Bush makes a speech. Still no WMD found. 1700 soldiers died for the Republican party so they can destroy social security, medicare, and other programs to help people.
Still 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians died.
Still 2 stolen elections.
Still Bush worse than Nixon.
Still so many deluded Chimp worshippers on polipundit dot con will cheer while more soldiers die while they stay at home watching the chimp from the comfort of their home, at Fort Braggart.
Still the Republican Party cuts benefits for veterans this year which has the Veterans groups pissed at the Republican Party that brags they support the military but sticks the shiv in with the form of budget cuts.
If you support the military so much why don't you fellows enlist and also call congress to restore the billion dollar cuts for veterans that will go for wealthy people's tax cuts.
What? no response? The silence deafens.
Oh, brother! Where to begin? This post is so full of falsehoods and fever swamp sludge it is laughable! Oh, and here's a hint: When severely outnumbered and on enemy ground, it is best not to insult everyone within moments of your arrival. And that last line is especially funny. Um, "maximus," just how exactly is anyone supposed to have already responded to you when this is your first post on the thread? "What? No response? The silence deafens..." Until the roar of you being ripped limb from limb begins moments later, that is!
One could spend forever picking that post apart piece by piece, but I have enough confidence in most of my readers to see through the tripe, so I will spare you the fisking.
Instead, let us concentrate on the most egregious error in the entire post, committed in this line: "If you support the military so much why don't you fellows enlist..."
Ouch! That is one stupid troll f***-up, right there! Not knowing your audience while preaching to them is supremely stupid! As the old axiom goes, "It is far better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt!" But don't take it from me, take it from the members of the U.S. Armed Forces, past and present, who hang out in fairly large numbers at PoliPundit! Now, let's just see what some of them have to say to Mr. Troll...
OAK LEAF (#10):
maximus, “why don’t you fellows enlist.”
Hmm, I did just that under President Reagan and under Bush 43 decided not retire.
We in the military, reserve and active duty, support our Commander overwhelmingly !!!
OP12 (#12):
It never ceases to amaze me when left wing trolls just assume that conservatives supporting the war are (1) not in the military (or previous members of the military) and (2) don't have friends and relatives in harm's way.
The truth is that fools like maximus are far less likely to have served or know people serving. And yet they pretend to support the military.
Among all groups, support for the war in Iraq is FAR higher among active military and military families than the general population.
GERRY OWEN (#17):
As a vet, (gluteous)Maximus, I would say why don't you pack up and split for France?
PROFESSOR BLATHER (#24):
I served 5 years in the United States Marine Corps, 1989-1994. Most regular posters here have indeed served or are still serving, in either the enlisted or officer ranks.
Now my turn, sonny: when and where did you serve? Which unit(s)? What was your MOS?
I assume, of course, that you served in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Right?
Because otherwise you'd be a painfully obvious hypocrite... and that can't be true, can it? Er... can it?
I look forward to your minimal reply, Minimus.
Undaunted, our brave little troll fights blindly onward, refusing to retreat while he had the chance to escape with comparatively minor wounds:
MAXIMUS (#31) [Ignoring the question about his own service and wandering far, far off topic for a few ad hominem attacks while slipping in a sucker punch which serves only to reiterate his earlier idiocy]:
I don't hate Bush and Republicans. I strongly oppose their 19th century robber baron capitalism.
Capitalism needs policing and Republicans tend to hate these type of police. Republicans tend to favor cheap labor at any cost, overlooking death injury, hardship, casting blame on everything but their employer.
If things were left up to the 101st keyboarding unit, Republican Party propagenda unit here, children under 16 would still work, we would have no 40 hour work week, safety standards would not exist. We would have dirty meat, dirty food and Flush Limbaugh on every network on tv. We would have comapnies like Enron cheating thousands of people. Ooops that did happen while Republicans held the congress.
Thank a liberal for the 40 hour work, minimum wage, social security, medicare, safety standards for makign reliable products.
We can thank 19th and 20th century conservatives for the great depresion, McCarthyism, lynching, segregation, religious oppression by radical christians, the civil war, slavery.
You don't think liberals owned slaves? Not at all.
In the 20th and 21st centuries you conservatives will tolerate wage slavery with an inflation reduced minimum wage.
(Emphasis added.)
Again, most of that is laughable and falls beneath the weight of its own folly, but Troll-boy continues to stomp on bare nerves after being plainly shown that the nature of his audience does not fit his pigeon-hole. He is, however, much too thick to get it! Why don't we let a couple of the folks sprinkle some logic on the fecal matter flung by our little monkey?
THE WARDEN (#45):
"If you support the military so much why don't you fellows enlist...."
This might be the most jackassed line of argument ever.
Hey lefties, if you want cops and firefighters to risk their lives protecting you and your property, then why don't you go police the streets and put out fires?
Wow that was fun. I could play this stupid game all day! Well, if I were a slobbering idiot, that is.
JAYSON (#51) [PoliPundit's own Jayson Javitz]:
...On a serious note, that whole lefty meme about being hypocritical regarding the war if you don't enlist truly is the most asinine meme in history.
First, many of us are too old to enlist. The armed forces wouldn't want us.
Second, by that "logic," if you're not a medical doctor, you would not be able to debate or to support health care reforms. If you're not a lawyer, you wouldn't be allowed to debate or to support tort reforms. If you're not a petroleum engineer, you wouldn't be allowed to debate or to support energy reforms. Etc., etc., etc.
It's literally absurd.
Modern-day leftism is not a political ideology.
It's a mental disorder.
PROFESSOR BLATHER (#62) [Repeating his loaded query]:
Minimus:
I'm confused, Chum.
I return here and see that you did come back to the thread - yet strangely I cannot find your record of military service.
Did I miss it perhaps?
Certainly after spewing that particularly trite talking point of moonbattery I'm not going to discover that - gasp! - you didn't actually serve at all? No! It can't be!
MAXIMUS (#63) [Still avoiding the Professor's question and descending into complete falderal]:
Paul Winchel the ventriloquist died recently, so I wonder how the dummy of a chimp gave his speech tonight.
They probably found a new ventriloquist.
Oh I don't blame America first. I blame conservative Republicans first.
PROFESSOR BLATHER (#65) [Refusing to be distracted]:
Minimus:
Ah, you're back!
And to ask yet again - which unit did you serve with? When? What was your MOS?
Do tell! We're waiting, Skippy!
PROFESSOR BLATHER (#68) [Baiting the trap some more and toying with his prey]:
Oh, Minimus .... ?
Minimus?
You served in which branch? Where? When?
(crickets chirp softly)
(a pin drops)
(somewhere in the murky depths of a nearby reality-based community, a young moonbat opens his eyes...)
MAXIMUS (#76) [Leaping into the bear trap with both feet]:
In 1968 and 1969 the government had a draft lottery. I did not get drafted.
Even if Republicans do serve they fight for the Republican Party and not America as they would get all that Nazi legislation passed that would do away with Social Security, and the social safety net and leave us in a world that Ayn Randies would love.
So I only respect Democrats who serve in the army. I consider Republicans the enemy within.
Ouch! The Professor's trap has sprung on its hapless victim, but the fatal wound is actually self-inflicted! After jumping into the trap, maximus swings his puny mace at the Professor only to hit himself square in the head with it! As the dying troll falls amidst the deriding laughter of anyone with a functional brain-cell reading his words, the PoliPundit jackals descend on him in droves to feast upon his remains! The battle is lost! Some of the best moments of the remaining carnage follow...
VNJAGVET (#85):
Max's post 76 is painful in its honesty, and reveals the vacuity of his belief system. Rebublicans are more frightening to him than the minions of death carrying out suicide bombings in hospitals, bus stops, restaurants and bazaars.
What about Rebublicans that fought in the Civil War to free slaves and in WW II to free the world from Hitler and Japanese warlords, and in Korea, sent by a Democratic President and Congress, and in Vietnam who, like me, were sent by a Democratic President and Congress?
What about Republicans like Everett Dirksen and Hugh Scott who fought the filibustering Southern Democrats to get the Civil Rights Acts of the Fifties and Sixties passed? What about Republicans in the Civil Rights Division and in Law Schools who went south to get African American voters registered in the Sixties and even the Seventies?
Bigots wear new clothes now. They have funny foil hats. Max is clearly one of them. Anyone who believes over half of his country is worse than Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi fills that bill for me.
That is pretty revealing.
OAK LEAF (#87):
Hmm, I have a suggestion for Maximus. Take a look at a reply of the Presidents address when they scan the audience. Those are members of the 18th Airborne Corps. They are overwhelmingly Republican.
The men are better men than you and so are the women. They are the only thing standing between you and terrorists.
OAK LEAF (#91):
Maximus, I am going to tell you something rather chilling. Deployed men and women know what the left is saying back home. At some point, there is going to be a soldier that is going to say "Why bother." NOT because of Bush 43 but because the crap from the left. That soldier, due to disgust, is going to "let" a terrorist "escape" by inaction. Hey, "why bother." Be very afraid of what that escaped terrorist just might do to one of your liberal urban meccas.
Sweet dreams maximus, sweet dreams....
PROFESSOR BLATHER (#92):
Ah, look! A Nazi reference! Minimus is so stunningly original!
(Please note, however: Minimus did not actually compare anyone to Nazis. Such would be a misinterpretation. Clarification to follow shortly)
And - gasp! - sweet young Minimus never served his country?
I don't understand. According to Minimus himself, it is the height of hypocrisy to support a President and not serve in his wars!
Honestly, I'm stunned! Did Minimus not vote for Clinton? He did??? What??
And yet no service in Bosnia? Nor in Kosovo? Nor in Somalia? Nor in Haiti?
I'm shocked. Just shocked. Surely the Left would be more intellectually honest than that, no?
To be serious for just a moment (which is admittedly difficult while giggling at Minimus - I especially enjoyed his attempt to pretend he's over 19 years of age!):
Minimus' last statement - while sophomoric and frankly insulting to most Democrats - is, sadly, true.
This statement:
So I only respect Democrats who serve in the army. I consider Republicans the enemy within.
They hate the majority of their country - make no mistake about it. They hate the troops - because (as those of us who actually DID serve know) the military votes Republican. And - no - zoomies, the Air Force does not count. Sorry.
If you have the stomach, you'll enjoy this glimpse through the dark abyss of moonbatdom. They don't pull punches: if the troops didn't vote Kerry, f^#$k 'em, according to the enlightened compassionate members of the Left.
Enjoy. Or Don't:
[DU link #1]
[DU link #2]
[DU link #3]
A small sample of how Minimus thinks... And to be completely fair - even in Moonbatland, a few of the loons stood up against this rhetoric.
Not many, though.
Wonder why Democrats lose elections? Wonder why they've lost everything, in fact?
Read on. The question posed was: Are you proud of our troops?
Here is a sample answer:
no pride- we should be ashamed of what they've done...
Edited on Sat Jan-22-05 11:50 AM by mike_c
...in our names, not proud of them. They've served as thugs and enforcers for a corrupt foreign policy. They've helped shatter a country already brought to it's knees by ten years of draconian sanctions and an invasion premised upon bald-faced lies. The've participated in a war of aggression that mocks international law. They've murdered untold numbers of innocent civilians. Their occupation has created an insurgency that threatens to consume Iraq in civil war, and causes the deaths of additional innocents. They have destroyed homes and lives for no good purpose whatsoever.
I am deeply ashamed of them. There is nothing noble about what they've done in Iraq. They have not served or defended us- they served fascism.
To those who inevitably argue that they had no choice but to commit these crimes, consider that this circumstance neither exonerates them under law, nor makes their actions admirable. Only blind alliegence- the act of being a "good German"- can raise pride in what they've done in Iraq.
Jesus wept. That they are ignorant is excusable, that they trumpet that ignorance so proudly and denigrate those who serve is unforgivable.
LIKEABLE LIBERAL (#95):
Maximus-
my friend, I am a democrat and I did serve, so I guess you can respect me or so you said.
I read your post above about minimum wage etc. with a fair degree of sympathy. I used to write such posts too and come in for the same response you've been getting.
It takes a thick epidermis to be a troll.
But a lot of the things you point out as objectionable about Republicans are a myth. They may have been true a while ago, but so many of them are no longer true.
The GOP is made up of normal people, like you (and me), no dumber, no smarter, no more venal, no more virtuous, not evil, not goody two shoes either.
Just people. A lot of them support minimum wage. Most of them wouldn't dream on IMPOSING more than 40 hour work weeks (in fact the struggle of the 21st century will be to maintain 40 hours of work as a MAXIMUM for everyone), they aren't all the stereotypes that you (and I) were trained to believe they were.
Hang out here for a while and listen to the folks. Disagree with respect, and not with a chip of superiority on your shoulder and you will do just fine and may even learn something.
Like GW isn't the monster your friends think he is.
That a conservative SCOTUS doesn't mean the end of civilization.
That the Republican leadership IS trying to govern responsibly but having a hard time with the loyal opposition.
That Iraq was the right thing to do.
And that many issues you may take for granted, like abortion, environment, labor relations, etc. have two defensible sides and the other side is not always too unreasonable.
Welcome to PoliPundit. A marketplace of ideas, a modern Agora.
Alas, I am afraid it is too late for him, Likeable Liberal. (Rest in pieces, little troll.) Perhaps some others might profit from your wisdom, however.
There is much more, including some good laugh lines, for anyone who cares to read the thread, but I've copied and pasted more than enough to make my point.
A few words of advice to any would be trolls. If you come to play on the threads of PoliPundit, bring relevant facts, strong arguments and links to support your claims (and, no, linking to DU is not going to help you - we tend to use DU links to make YOU look stupid, as evidenced above), be courteous, keep a civil tongue, have a sense of humor and keep your wits about you. Leave the childish insults and Moonbat conspiracy theories at home. Failure to heed these warnings could prove fatal.
Gee... I wonder who we'll be having over for dinner on the threads of PoliPundit tonight? Trolls - the other white meat!
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