Know your enemy
First, a quick history. A commenter calling himself Cincy Capell has been posting here and on pretty much every news article that mentions the Cincinnati Tea Party. He spends his time calling us extremists, wing-nuts, and teab*****s. If you want to call me an extremist, fine. I disagree, but it’s an arguable position. The teab****r term bugs me because it’s the left’s favorite pejorative and it slanders good and decent people. I warned him once via email that I wouldn’t tolerate this on my blog. He did it again, and I warned him again. The third time, I deleted all his comments and banned his account. He tried to post a few times but couldn’t.
So look what shows up in the comments for my post about the Mason Community Tea Party.
- Rich Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 6:00 pm eYour group doesn’t even have enough juice to influence a small city government, let alone DC. But it looks like you did get some nice patronising lip service from a couple of politicians, so you’ve got that going for you. Which is nice.FAIL
- Mike Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 2:01 pm eWelcome back Mr. Capell. A different name and a different IP address (don’t forget to keep posting from your Blackberry), yet the same trite message as before. We’re building an organization. Nobody (except for you) expects massive results overnight. The only reason you expect massive results is that you need that in order to accuse us of failure. Quite frankly, your obsession with attacking us just shows that you see us as a threat to the current power structure. Why exactly are you scared? Why do you resort to name calling instead of logic or argument? - Joe Rattermann Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 11:17 pm ePoor Mike, his “party” has no pull anywhere. Maybe it’s the fault of the ‘Liberal Media, eh Mike? FAIL INDEED.
As I point out in the comments, I know who “Rich” is, because he used exactly the same language in an attempted post while he was banned. So now “Joe” shows up to help with “Rich’s” argument.
Joe and Rich are what are called “sock puppets.” Rather than respond in comments or ban him again, I want to call attention to this because it’s instructive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_sock_puppet
Our friend Mr. Capell after being banned has now posted twice under psuedonyms. The first was using his Blackberry. The second, was anonymized by bouncing the post off a server in Europe. I leave these posts up specifically because they demonstrate the tactics and hate of the far left. He’s using false posting accounts to make it seem like there are multiple people who support his point of view. Contrast the Cincinnati Tea Party members with him. He accuses us of hatred and being extremists, yet we are out here in public using our real names and arguing with facts, logic, and reason. He hides behind his keyboard and uses lies, name calling and innuendo.
It is important that we understand the tactics of the far left. They write books about this. Know their tactics, call them out, and then defeat them with ideas. Never stoop to their level. We have truth on our side and we don’t have to call them names.
One cavaet before I go, I don’t want to lump in everyone on the left with this jerk. We have a regular commenter named Coleman that comes in and argues his points. There is a lot we disagree on, but he has earned my respect for using his real name and being will to engage in argument instead of name calling.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Doesn’t bode well that your “enemy” is an
anonymous blogger. I think in your attempt
to maintain civility you’ve comprised the integrity
of your blog.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Actually he isn’t much of an enemy. He’s just a convenient example of the statist left that feels threatened when the average citizen starts getting involved. How do you think the integrity has been compromised? I think that’s an interesting perspective.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
You are wise in using this guy as an example. We are on the side of truth and integrity and have no need for name-calling or shouting matches. We just need to be informed and assertive, and let them make fools of themselves by bursting into their flames of hate. Rather enjoyable.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
I think your integrity is comprised in that you
felt the need to make a blog post about an
anonymous guy who is known to make hostile
posts on both progressive and conservative
blogs, it looks amateur. Why not just block his posts
and be done with it. I mean don’t you have more important
things to do that give attention to radicals, who you claim
have no logical arguments and just spew hate. Seems to me
you should have something better to post about than
him. Some undecided who reads your blog and sees that
post might get the idea that you guys feel threatened by
anonymous bloggers, something a legitimate political party
shouldn’t.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Ridicule is a powerful tool. And for the people who support the far left agenda it is the only weapon they have. They know, for example, that for the government to propose nationalized healthcare after bankrupting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is insanity. Conservatives would be glad to consider nationalize healthcare if we could see a return on investment instead of another “feel good” government program that is headed for bankruptcy from the very start. The liberals also know that criticism over government spending in the George Bush era does not justify the kind of spending the democrats are doing now. They are like children living in a world of fantacy. The rest of us just have to shake our heads, do what we know is right, and wait for the rest of them to grow up.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Great blog post Mike. I disagree with UCstudent though. Its obvious that this post was specific to the topic of “Know Your Enemy”, as titled. Your integrity was demonstrated by the fact that you gave him warnings, and then decided to let him post after exlaining how this one individual was passing himself off as ‘many’, which implies that his churlish comments are being validated by several others.
Well done! A teachable moment!