Netiquette and the abundance of Hate-Speech

I've been observing the 'culture of the internet' in 2012 USA.  What was once, briefly, a place where people could politely engage in discourse and learn from eachother's disagreement -- with occasional 'flaming' -- which indicated a flare up of anger where people lost their cool -- it seems the pre-eminence of commentary by readers/viewers is of a sort of foul-mouthed hate-speech which generally attempts to discredit the content makers by name-calling or insults but avoids mentioning the actual content.

As a self-proclaimed Radical Evolutionary, ie an (*R)Evolutionary, I am regularly surprised by people who claim high-level degrees (PhD's and Masters) and then say things like "Put down your crack pipe, you Liberal moron!" and so on.

What I find saddest about the loss of nettiquette is that the internet is a pathway to dialogue, but this type of attack -- which doesn't touch on the subject -- really lowers the quality of discourse.  It's funny to write this knowing that my last blog post was titled "fuck sports news", however I did provide many rational reasons for why it's upsetting (just today CNN News just covered a story about a US soldier going on a killing spree in Afghanistan killing 12+ civilians, and then followed this story immediately with a 'Sports News' story that Tiger Woods hurt his foot) and I didn't just call sports fans 'dipshits'.

When I'm engaging in a dialogue with these folks who are throwing insults into the conversation as if they were adjectives, my tools are humor and calm rationality.  While I'm merely dealing with hate in a typed medium, I'm inspired by many visionaries like Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi (among others) who had to look hate in the eye and still found love, compassion, and hope.

While no doubt I find these Sophist name-callers offensive, I also feel like an ambassador of the good potential of humanity.  I choose to let these verbal assaults slide gently off me like soapy water.  More amusing are the insults which are so far off-base that it's almost like they are insulting someone else -- I just don't fit the bill.

While I've mentioned that name-calling is not a higher ground, when someone says they have a PhD and proceeds to call me an asshole, moron, fuckwad, or similar -- I tend to respond with inquiry such as "I doubt you got your PhD in polite debate or considerate discussion" and often finish the conversation with something like "are you a sour grouchy person in real life, or just online where no-one can call you out"? 
And I admit, I do frequently wonder if these people are paid agitators by some type of CIA-backed community-shattering 'divide and conquer with fear and hate' strategy for fracturing the resistence to oppression within the USA.  Another CoIntelPro Operation designed to harm progressive self-aware leaderless personal empowerment?

 And lastly, I do wonder what these people are like face-to-face?   I'm a 6'2" former martial artist who has a kind heart and disposition, generally. Would any of these people even have the courage to engage me in a conversation, let alone a dispute? Would they berate me for my low intellect, for being a "liberal" or a "sad hippy" or a "crack smoker", or would they even be able to look me in the eye?

FUCK SPORTS NEWS

FUCK SPORTS NEWS!
I don't care who won what game, or what homo-erotic pageantry moronic cretin sports-tards are obsessing over -- this is not 'news' and doesn't need to be in the News!
Dear God, who in the world lied to all these people and told them sports are somehow important?!?!?
Why am I being force-fed news about sports -- I don't care!  Sports are a distraction, like the Roman colloseum Gladiator games, to give disenfranchised people stuff to think about besides the fact that they are being screwed by 'the man' (the guys with all the money)!!!
Getting upset that your team lost is like getting all worked up about the Pee-wee leagues!
Real News is supposed to be about "Life and Death" stuff, like nuclear meltdowns and empires invading non-threatening countries and killing civilians and being immune from prosecution!  Real news is bribes and corruption and the US Dept of Firearms & Tobacco sending 40k full-auto weapons right to the Mexican drug cartels!  Real News is the govt giving 8.5 *trillion* in bailouts to banks that claimed to "have no money" and then posting record profits AND giving out executive bonuses!  (And Real News is no one going to jail for fraud about that.)
The important stuff is very different from how many goals someone got paid millions to score!
Spectator Sports 'News' (in quotes bc I scorn the term) is as useful for me as all of the completely false ads which lie about the values of dangerous products which I'm encouraged to purchase b/c they will make my life shorter and thus increase the supply of natural resources for the 'haves'.
Don't get me wrong -- I like an occasional baseball game, a football game, occasional boxing, etc.  They are entertaining, sort of, in a subdued, homo-erotic way with lots of males getting their balls in the other teams holes and goals.  But do I give a rats ass who wins?!?!?! NO WAY!
I don't care who kicked who's ass, I don't care about Tibow or Tiger or Serena or Lebron or Shaq or Magic or the dead college football coach with a winning streak who didn't stop his pervo coach from raping children!
I invite someone to explain to me why 'Sports News' is important...?
Whew, that RANT felt good!
Re-post here on my blog from my 4:30am FB rant, where no one will read it.

Say NO to SOPA/PIPA -- a day of protest

Google & others are protesting, thought I'd join in -- b/c the internet doesn't need 'protection' from 'Intellectual Property theft' at the cost of having a free & open internet!!!
Also, copying is not piracy.  We must keep our language and filter out the false phrases.  One false phrase is calling copying piracy.  'Piracy' is stealing something from someone such that the owner no longer has access to that thing.  'Copying' (which has been called 'sharing' at various points) duplicates something and no one loses the use of that thing.  The only losers in copying are companies who want more profit from the thing, and are willing to sacrifice and sabotage and criminalize Constitutional rights (such as freedom of press, freedom of speech) in order to force people to purchase (and re-purchase) access to content which they created.

Other bogus words include:

• "right to life" for the anti-abortion movement,
• "insurgents" for people fighting invaders of their own country,
• "terrorists" for military forces not linked to a government -- but this phrase is not applicable to mercenaries who are linked to governments (even if they may be torturing, raping, and murdering),
• "contractors" which is now mis-used to include the government use of mercenaries in foreign lands,
• "surgical strikes" which has been used to describe missiles and bombs which frequently kill civilians, hit hospitals, & kill journalists,
• "free market capitalism" which in the USA intentionally casts a blind eye to sanctioned market manipulation with policies like farm subsidies / drug war (making products illegal) / corporate buyouts / fraudulent promotions / and government bailouts of corrupt fraudulent financial institutions, but accuses other countries of violating the principle of "free markets" continually,
• "peace keepers" for foreign fighters, invaders, or neutrally-aligned foreign occupying troops,
• "illegal aliens" for descendants of native peoples who's ancestors resided on the territory which is now claimed by the descendents of the conquerors (who are attempting to erase the historical factual record and also maintain a racially biased system of immigration which is biased against non-whites)

The following text is copied (word for word) from Craiglist's protest today -- http://www.craigslist.org/about/SOPA.  Thanks Craig Newmark & co!

---

Corporate supporters of Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA) demand the ability to take down any web site (including craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits -- without prior judicial oversight or due process -- in the name of combating "online piracy."

PIPA and SOPA authors and supporters insist they'd only go after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose "Big Brother" controls on our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results. Incredibly, many Congress Members favor this idea.

Try to imagine jack-booted thugs throttling free speech, poisoning the Internet (greatest of American inventions, the very pillar of modern democracy), and devastating one of the our most successful industries. Totalitarian, anti-American, massively-job-killing nonsense.

Tell Congress you OPPOSE Senate 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) and H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA):

• Phone your Member of Congress via nifty Progressive Change app
• Contact Senators who are refusing to meet with constituents about PIPA.
• Reverse Robocall pro-PIPA & pro-SOPA MOC + Lobbyists (More at Ars Technica)
• EFF Congressional Emailer - Oppose Internet Blacklisting (PIPA & SOPA)
• ECA Congressional Emailer - Don't Censor Our Internet!
• OpenCongress Congressional Emailer - Oppose SOPA
• Generic Congressional Emailer (You'll need your Zip+4)
• Petition Congress - Protect Innovation, Dump SOPA (Progressive Change )
• Outside the US? Sign Petition Opposing US Censorship of Global Sites (EFF)

Supporters of PIPA and SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)

Opponents of PIPA and SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)

Where does your Member of Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)

PIPA and SOPA Are Too Dangerous To Revise, They Must Be Killed Entirely

Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass - they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet -- recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora's jar of "chilling effects" and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.

Don't believe it? Monster Cable has labeled craigslist a "rogue site," earmarked for blacklisting and full-takedown under PIPA -- resale of stereo cables by CL users reduces Monster 's new cable sales. (reddit).

There is still time to be heard. Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised -- they must be killed altogether.

Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like craigslist.

Tim O'Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy, asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.

Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:

• Growing Chorus of Opposition to PIPA and SOPA
• Open Letter against SOPA from 83 Prominent Internet Engineers
• Why SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) are Bad, Bad Ideas (Techdirt)
• Piracy not a problem, PIPA and SOPA are unnecessary (Tim O'Reilly on GigaOM)
• PIPA and SOPA News (Google News)
• PIPA Wikipedia entry ::::: SOPA Wikipedia entry
• SOPA FAQ (CNET)