MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Red State was RIGHT to ban the Cult of Ron Paul

• Posted by Sparta on October 25th, 2007 filed in 2008 election, Blogs, Blogtards, Candidates, General, Moonbats, Paultards, Politics    

Much ado is being made of Red State’s recent decision to ban Paulbots from posting, with a lot of criticism (much of which is not worth reading) being directed at them for it. Here’s my two cents, but first, the ban:

Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul. Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal.

Ed Morrissey, among others, thinks they made a mistake in doing so.

It’s their community, of course, and they set the rules. However, this doesn’t hurt Paul’s credibility as much as it does Redstate’s. While Paul’s supporters tend towards the annoying and repetitive, they have less impact because we can easily engage them and counter their arguments. Banning them simply for their support for a candidate seems more like an admission that Redstate lacks that ability.

That’s a fair-minded critique, but I think Ed doesn’t completely understand the situation, nor do the others condemning the ban. (Many, if not most, of the others are simply flaming rather than discussing, and they aren’t worth addressing.)

For one thing, Red State is a community website, much like the Daily Kos or the DU. Each has an overall “flavor,” if you will, and it’s the siteowners’ prerogative to determine that flavor. Kos and the DU are quite explicit in their rules not allowing conservatives, and the DU will go as far as banning even if you’re there only to help. (I don’t know if Kos does the same thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) I’m quite certain that Ron Paul supporters who aren’t there to shill and/or attack are welcomed at Red State, but unfortunately, I have yet to see a Paultard that isn’t on the attack or isn’t spamming. That’s why we taunt them here at MVRWC–because they’re easy, like troofers and other assorted conspiracy nuts. There’s virtually no difference between the styles of Paultards and troofers. Anyway, if Leon Wolf, Erick Erickson, Mark Krempasky, and the others don’t want Red State to turn into a Ron Paul campaign website, banning the Paultards makes sense. Red State members generate content there, unlike at regular blogs. It probably would be silly for Ed Morrissey to issue a blanket ban, because he’s the only one generating content for the site–comments are just comments, and the opinions of the commenters can’t make Captain’s Quarters turn into a Ron Paul blog. (I don’t mean to pick on CQ–it’s just that his blog post was a fair critique written in good faith.)

Now, I’ve been spending time at Digg lately. Without even being a regular Red State reader, I know exactly what Leon and the others were dealing with and how frustrated they are just by watching Digg. It’s not enough with these people to post a story just once; it has to be spammed repeatedly until they’ve converted someone into their cult–and that happens with any RP story. And believe me, there are a lot of them. For example: there are countless Ron Paul blogs out there, and all have written screamed bloody murder about the Red State ban, and all the posts have been sent to digg. That’s fair, of course, but it’s annoying as hell seeing nothing but the same Ron Paul stories all the time. The Paultards are organized, and any time their boy gets a mention on a website, they flock to it to digg, comment, flame, whatever. Imagine a post at Red State extolling the saintly virtues of Dear Leader Ron Paul. Now imagine the link spammed all over the place, to bring in allies to comment and flame detractors. Now also imagine it being linked as “Red State endorses Ron Paul.” Well, guess what–that’s what they do, and they’ve learned well how to do it from their brothers, the 9/11 troofers. They don’t just state their case and engage in rational discussion; they refuse to acknowledge any other position at all, and they repeat their garbage (and that’s what it usually is) over and over ad nauseum. It’s just a big, annoying waste of time. As for me, I’ve learned to just ignore their gibberish in the comments here. But at Red State it isn’t just comments; they have user blogs.

Yes, as Ed says, their arguments are easy to refute, but who has time for it? The problem is, they can not agree to disagree. They’re the ultimate trolls, refusing to let anyone else have their say. They flame everyone who disagrees, calling them socialists or fascists, saying “you hate the Constitution,” “you hate liberty,” “Ron Paul is the ONE TRUE conservative,” “you’re a tool of the NWO/CFR/Zionist crusaders, go back to sleep,” blah blah blah. Yawn. Is there any point at all in debating that? Why subject your other readers/community members to it? I sure wouldn’t, and I’m sure nobody who’s criticizing Red State for the ban would either. Most (if not all) blogs have rules of some kind that dictate the content, whether it’s a no-swearing rule, a no-troofers rule, or whatever. We even have rules like that here at MVRWC.

Here’s a charming example of a Paultard comment, at Captain’s Quarters (warning–heavy concentration of Paultard nonsense in the comments there):

Posted by Abe Foxman | October 24, 2007 6:02 PM

Maybe if Ron Paul had bent his knee and groveled before the Lords of AIPAC he would be found more acceptable to the Big People That Matter.
If kissing the butt of Alien nation’s Agent of Influence is good enough for Rudy and Hillary, Ron Paul should just accept that powerful Jews control who the public is allowed to discuss and vote for.

Niiiiice. See, if that filthy crap were posted here, that Nazi pig would be banned immediately. There are plenty of people who will take a comment from a blog and say “So-and-so (siteowner) endorses this,” because it wasn’t deleted. Call it fascist if you want, but we don’t allow that kind of filth here, period. And while this isn’t the typical public Paultard comment, it’s certainly not unheard-of.

Should Red State start allowing white supremacists to post? Should they allow troofers and other deranged conspiracy theorists to post?

David All also disagrees with the RS ban, saying,

Personally, I recognize that Paul’s support is very, very real, especially in the politics + tech sphere. He is the people-powered Howard Dean candidate of 2008 which I’ve been saying we need to “prove” the importance of an effective Internet strategy. He is that Revolution.

This is another instance of not understanding the problem. The faithful Reverend Doctor Saint Ron Paul disciples do not have an “effective Internet strategy.” They have an annoying internet strategy, and Red State is just the first of the big websites to finally stomp out the obsessed, spamming trolls. It’s become a joke in the blogosphere–if you want traffic, post something about Ron Paul because they’ll all come running to spam and/or engage in a circle jerk in the comments. At digg, there is no topic, no matter how unrelated it is, that isn’t polluted with “Ron Paul 2008!” in the comments. Some have even started putting “Ron Paul” in the title just to get the attention of the Paulbots who are endlessly searching for new stuff there, because some will automatically digg anything with his name. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Digg starts banning Ron Paul sites because of the massive amount of duplicate and stuff submitted there.) And everyone knows about the Paulbots flooding internet polls–they post the links to polls in Ron Paul forums and at Digg repeatedly and they all go vote, making the results look absolutely nothing like the scientific polls. Then they scream bloody murder if the poll results are dismissed as having been flooded/spammed/stacked, and bombard the pollers with angry, hateful emails about it. Ask them at Pajamas Media, LGF, or GOP Bloggers. Ask Fox News, CNBC, or any other mainstream media organization. They know. John Hawkins knows, too–they’ve actually tried to get him fired from his job for not worshiping at the altar of the Reverend Doctor Saint Ron Paul. (So much for their claims that they’re all about “freedom.”) Who has time for or wants to be bothered with that kind of nonsense?

Although I disagree profoundly with Ron Paul on many issues, I do happen to agree* with others, and I’m sure the Red Staters would say the same. But it’s not Ron Paul that’s the problem–it’s his supporters. Nobody likes spammers or trolls.

Ron Paul Cultists, like 9/11 troofers, are fond of quoting Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Ron Paul is no Gandhi. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they just think Ron Paul sucks. The end.

Good for Red State for taking back control of their own site’s content.

 

* I also agree with certain things some Democrats like Joe Lieberman are for. It doesn’t mean I’d vote for him for President, though, so don’t bother, Paulbots. It’s not gonna happen. Ever.

UPDATE: That’s gonna leave a mark! (But see? People have had enough of the Paulbots. Let the backlash begin!)