bee feast

It's That Woman again. I feel quite defensive. Her determination to censor anyone with a view at any sort of angle to her own on her site, and her excruciating puffed-up I-know-my-rights pride in that debate-stifling stance, takes precedence over everything, even showing an ounce of sympathy for London. It's all Just About America, isn't it?

This is my comment policy, which will be updated as the need arises:

1) Do not call me names! Please don’t offend or insult the blog hostess. If I get into specifics, this post would never end. Just use common sense. Don’t imply or state that I’m stupid, for example. Don’t call me a puppet or mouthpiece of white conservatives. And if you call my argument stupid, you must explain why.

Don’t call other commenters names, either. Attack the argument, not the person.

2) I am queen of www.lashawnbarber.com because this is my weblog. I pay for the hosting and I make the rules.

You have no First Amendment rights on this blog. My right to free speech is protected on this site, not yours.

Mini-civics lesson: The First Amendment restricts government, not private citizens, from infringing on your right to free speech. On this blog, your speech is a privilege. On your blog, your speech is a right. Learn the distinction. [Right, and we're not allowed to imply that you're stupid. As if it's clear on your site how to post comments anyway - unless that's meant to weed out the stupid people. Maybe it's just that none may enter the hallow'd halls. Where do ya get off, lady? A?]

3) No profanity or quasi-profanity, such as the vulgar reference to urination, pi**. I hate that word. [What, piss, 'La' Shawn? Piss? Does it really piss you off like a big pissing pisser? Piss pissy piss piss piss.]

4) Stay on-topic. While I won’t delete off-topic comments, I prefer they be relevant to the post. If you have an off-topic question or issue, e-mail me.

5) I reserve the right to edit or delete any comment for any reason. If I edit your comment, most of the time I’ll add a notation, such as “Edited by the Admin” or “Nice try, troll!”

6) You get one warning before you are banned, although there are exceptions (If I really like you, you’ll get three warnings.). Being banned from my domain means your ISP is blocked from accessing the entire site.

7) I prefer real names, but if you are anonymous or use an alias for privacy, that’s OK (As if I’d know anyway, right?).

8) Trackbacks leading to offensive posts where I’m the subject will be deleted.

I'm so weary of this kind of belligerence and sanctimony (yes, of course she's got the right to delete stuff but really, if you're going to be like that why bother allowing comments at all? Why not just take down your entire blog and replace it with I AM SO GREEAAAAT in big letters made out of lewd naked people? Some of America is so hung up on the very idea of its Rights, and trumpets so loud and long about them, that it becomes deaf to the quiet shuffling out of the back door of the actual substance of those rights.). Any minute now I'm going to plead "why can't we All Just Get Along?". I should really avoid looking up right-wing froth at this juncture. Never ceases to amaze me, though, the scrap-happy mentality of them - always accusing weedy liberals of looking at their bird or spilling their pint. They are tireless, where libs by definition get tired and clutch their brow and succumb to their sense of horror at the way things are. The right will always win much of the time just because winning is important to them in and of itself. They're the chest-beating jocks all padded up and bellowing. But I'd rather be on the side of the fucking human beings, thanks. Give me my wire-framed spectacles and my Atari t-shirt and my desire to do no harm.

Go ahead and delete this kind of thing from your precious, precious forum of Chrissjunn rectitude, girlie, but it's still here and it's still pissed off with the likes of you. Unworthy as you are of our righteous PISS. But it's beneath me to say so, and the best option is merely to ignore you, or stick a flower down the barrel of your rifle and smile.

The Thing sustained a certain degree of righteous subscriber-bile for this - none of it was mine (neither the satire nor the bile) but I was proud of 'em (the satirists, not the bilious). It's veering towards the uncomfortable but I think it's crucially important to make light of terrorism, to trivialise it, to point and laugh at it. If you take it 100% seriously you elevate it to the position of some kind of lurking deity, which is what they want you to do. They want you on your knees before the totem of Filled Trouser. It may be unpalatable to poke fun because your instinct is to let the power of it wash over you and make you feel helpless, and look to the people in power to sort it out. But you must do it. You must smirk at it and dismiss it as less of a worry than the latest Hall's-Mentholyptus-gives-you-cancer scare. That segues into the showing of no fear which is genuinely and honestly half the battle. You respect the dead - you don't respect the people who killed them.

I don't suppose I'll have to worry about falling foul of terrorism in London, because as soon as I mention that I'm still planning to move back, my mum will probably kill me.