‘Sweet Smell Of Success’ (1957) You’re no doubt wondering what a movie drama about a big time newspaper columnist and his dirty deeds has to do with anything here…
I watched it for the first time last night. I don’t know how it escaped me all these years, given I enjoy movies from that era, and enjoy Burt Lancaster. It was out right brilliant. The cat’s in the bag, and the bag’s in the river.
The film got me thinking about this thing I’m involved in here, with this blog, and commenting on X and various forums. The film shows all the back stabbing and dirty deeds, and worse that columnists did, and I have a suspicion not all was mere fiction, writers aren’t that clever after all. They get inspiration from somewhere.
But the dirty tricks, the scheming, the personal attacks- either accurate or lies, is very much something we face here, online. Now who is “we”? Writers. That can mean anyone who comments on a forum or X, or a blogger.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. True… But words do hurt the cause, which is supposed to be, at least among this group of commenters, and bloggers, defending and strengthening the Second Amendment. Sure everyone’s got an opinion. Are all mine right? I’m sure not. But, why can’t we have a debate? A healthy, civil debate? Why does, nearly every time, a pack of trolls go on the attack the moment I post something? What triggers them so? If they said even a fraction of what they write to people in person, they’d get bloodied, or worse. So why not treat people online as you would in person? Is it a similar thing to road rage? Where people forget the other car has a driver and perhaps passengers in it, and their mind sees it as just a mere chunk of steel, aluminum and plastic on four tires? Do they not think that at the other end of that screen name there’s a person?
But back the the cause, the Second Amendment. Why waste so much time and energy, being mean and nasty and troll, when we could be working on furthering our cause? The nastiness ends up being noise.
I’m typically the odd man out. That’s nothing new. But the antics of some of these supposed adults makes school yard bullies look tame, and dare I say, mature by comparison.
I guess the trolling began, at least for me, when I deviated from the script, their script. I spoke my mind. I dared to disagree. But people disagree all the time, right? Apparently online things are different. And it poses a very real danger for our cause. If we can’t be adults, and figure out various ways to work together to advance our cause, we’re screwed. They don’t call it “self government” for no reason, it means do it yourself. Yet why are so many so hostile to people voicing ideas and opinions? Is it simply ego? How is our cause going to bring new people into the fold, if they see so many acting like morons? That’s not going to help. Also many currently involved will grow apathetic, and no longer remain politically involved. Our ranks not only won’t grow, but worse, they’ll shrink. And for what? Because some people disagree with some others? Do ego’s really grow that much the moment someone’s at a keyboard? I think so.
There’s one forum, which is in dire financial straits. The trolls there have complete control over the comments section despite the forum having a comments section policy. The owners blame their financial situation on anti 2A Google algorithms. That’s no doubt part of the problem. Yet, why would long time regular commenters, stop commenting? That’s not algorithms, as they were daily readers. That’s something else. Could it be the trolls are killing the very forums they’ve been allowed to take control of? By their endless personal attacks of anyone and everyone who dares deviate from their script?
I can’t have sympathy for the owners of such a forum. They have a published list of comment section rules, which they have decided in the recent past to no longer enforce. And not too long after, the number of commenters noticeably drops. And readers are inundated with appeals to donate in order to keep the forum up. Again they blame Google. And again, I say, that Google is only part of the problem.
Gun owners like to talk. They like to share ideas and experiences. They like to say they like an idea, or dislike another idea. They like to debate. Debate is how we achieve true progress. It’s vital we as individuals treat each other online as we would in person. We must remain on target, and not get caught up in nonsense and trolling. It’s further vital that the owners of 2A forums, enforce their comment section policies and keep a lid on the trolling. The forums are an extremely important tool for our cause, they must remain online, bringing us news, and the comments section- albeit minus the trolls. If they don’t, it’ll be a major loss to our cause as they will sink into insolvency. We can’t afford to take our eye off the target… The target being returning the Second Amendment to a first class right.
We all must stay on target. And I must get some sleep.
Equip, train, pray and never disarm.
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