But I welcome YOUR comments

For a long time, I used to play a little game while reading USA Today online. The game was called, “Spot the nutty comment poster”. Here’s how it went: I would go to USAToday.com and find the most benign story possible. The headline would be something like, “Cute dog makes locals smile” or “Toothpaste is awesome”. I would then scroll down to the area where readers of the page could post comments, and count how many comments it took for the thread to disintegrate into one of the following three areas:

1. The liberals are killing our country
2. The conservatives are killing our country
3. I hate me some gays

Guess what the average was? Three comments. Three. For the puppy story, the comments would go something like this:

Comment #1 from LovesPups3: Ha ha, LOL. That DID make me smile : )
Comment #2 from SNeDeker@qrl: That looks like my puppy.
Comment #3 from RushLives#1: Under Obamacare, puppies will be subjected to Death Panels!!!

For the toothpaste story, it would go like this:

Comment #1 from HelloKTY: Ha ha, LOL. I love toothpaste ; )
Comment #2 from ArizonaMom**: I have that brand of toothpaste.
Comment #3 from 9/11ConSPiracy: Under Bush, only the wealthiest 3% could get toothpaste.
- Or -
Comment #3 from Biblesez42: Gays like to put toothpaste up their a$$es!!!!!!

This drove me to one and only one conclusion: people who post comments on USAToday.com are fucking lunatics.

Although I no longer play the game, I cannot stop myself from reading the comments. I wonder to myself: Where do these people get their information? Do they really think that they are informing anyone? Changing anyone’s mind? A hateful comment about a conservative will inspire a hateful retort about a liberal, which will inspire a hateful comment about the gays. Then, someone will put a comment, in bad English that says, “I am so sorry to bother, but have you know that you can save $$$ on online store so good? T-shirts, canvas bags and more!” which always adds a little levity, but my point is that no one listens to the other. No one considers the ideas of the other, asks for more information, asks why they think that way. It’s a bunch of exposition with nothing more. These commenters can come up with a username, hook up to any site, and spew all of the hate they want, all from the privacy of their parents’ basement, where they likely live, because these people sure as hell don’t have jobs. (If they do, I would like to tell their boss right now that they should get fired because THEY ARE NOT WORKING VERY HARD!!!)

And, while I understand that people feel passionate about their politics, I really wonder why people so frequently think that comments in online newspaper articles are the most helpful place to say crazy shit about gays. A) Where do you live that the biggest problem you encounter is the gays? Because, based on the gays I know, a big, gay town sounds like it would be freaking awesome. B) Why are you so obsessed with the gays? Even if you think that being gay is a sin or an abomination or whatever, aren’t there worse sins and abominations? Have you ever heard of poverty? The Cholera epidemic in Haiti? Puppy mills? Adult, consenting sex, my friends, is no puppy mill. C) My King James Bible is 1074 pages and talks about many things, mostly helping the poor. Is the only thing your Bible talks about the gays? Then why isn’t it called the Gayble? Can I see your Gayble?

Don’t get me wrong –free speech is a fine thing, and I love that, in our world, we have multiple platforms available for people to express their Constitutionally given right to say whatever the hell they want, crazy or no. But just as we should not abuse our second amendment right to bear arms by taking a semiautomatic machine gun to a playground and taking target practice on the giant slide just because we can, we should not abuse our Constitutionally given right to free speech by vomiting an ill-conceived, ill-measured word soup all over the pages of a national publication, just because we can. But if you do, use your real damn name, so that you can be held responsible for cleaning up your own vomit.