Defcon 3

Much like the USA being attacked by aliens terrorists on September 11th, thebadrash.com has come under unprecedented, totally moronic assault. For this reason, my alert level has been raised to RED (which means I have to moderate all comments).

What happened?
In brief, what happened was that I posted that Jorge Valí­n, an occasional contributor to the Libertad Digital/Spain Herald right-wing online magazines, was stupid because he had claimed that the aim of all civil servants is to do nothing. I noted that not only was this wrong, but it was also insulting to many civil servants whose main aim is not 'to do nothing', but to serve their country and feed their children. My irrational response so incensed some of Valí­n's fans that they felt they had ony one path open to them: total annihilation.

Stupidity
As you may have noticed if you visited the post (which was tagged as a 'rant', something which clearly passed over the heads of my Spanish correspondents), the onslaught was brief but terrible. Terribly stupid, that is. Various gentlemen suggested that I didn't know anything about ETA, the Basque separatist group. The argument here was that because I referred to them as 'separatists', I didn't believe they were 'terrorists'. Now even with my very basic schooling in predicate and syllogistic logic, I can tell that my commenters have made a grave error here. Are ETA a group of separatists? The answer is: yes. Therefore, is it not logically correct to refer to ETA as a spearatist group? You may consider it disingenuous not to use the 'terrorist' word when referring to ETA, but for me, the term has become hackneyed.
Other commenters took the time to suggest that being told that one's job was worthless (or that one's aim in life was 'to do nothing') wouldn't be insulting to someone. Well, it would be insulting to me and to all the other workers I've ever met. This, then, is a clear ideological issue. Clearly, those who disagree with me feel that their lives have no value. I wasn't brought up to think like that. I was brought up to take pride in my work, to value my fortune and to strive for the improvement of not only my lot, but that of those around me. If this makes me unusual, then I'm glad to be unusual. But I have the moral authority here, not you.

Proliferation
After becoming sick of the childish slide into insult and sophism, I closed comments on the original post. "Enough is enough", I thought, and I edited my final comment to cite my guidelines on editing and removing comments. But it wasn't enough for some. Instead, the comments started to flow on other posts... to the point where I had to institute moderation on all comments. The purpose of this tool is to ensure that no one posts any comments which I deem to be off-topic or unduly irritating. Check my guidelines if you find this difficult to understand.

For this reason, you may have tried to post a comment to my site which failed to appear. If this is the case, please consider whether your comment was relevant to the post it was added to. it's simple: stay on-topic and this will never have to happen again.

Salutation
Well, thanks for the traffic and the attention. I guess that unfortunately, I'll have to stay on red alert for some time now. I'm beginning to empathise with poor President Bush. It must be a nightmare hanging out with craven, soulless, right-wing ideologues when all you want to do is have a beer and a bit of blow.
Adéu.

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