Official 2012 Democrat Gloating/Republican Tears Thread

Here you go, peeps:

THE STORY

Yes. I can tell from the dimples that she is very intelligent.

That photo tells me that she has experience getting lei'd. I wonder if she can give me tips on getting lei'd too.

Mmmmmm, diiiiimples.

I would totally start a thread and make fun of her if she were fat.

I don't know if I so much took a stand more than I was just in disbelief. It was the stupidest way to ruin a night I've ever encountered. But that was the thing. I even admitted I used to vote Republican etc. but she was off on her own train of thought where I was a scummy liberal. Again, because I was working two jobs in order to pay my loans off and expressed unhappiness in the process.

Haha, did I even mention she's half American Indian!

On the plus side, I've been dating the Israeli girl regularly now. She's good people.

Still, I think you're scarred for life from that, for both reasons. Twenty years from now you'll still remember that moment and say to yourself "what the fuck just happened?"

Yay!

I kinda wish this was real.

She beat you at Little Big Horn, huh?

I know I definitely Custer out.

I'll see your attractive minority politician and raise you this one(the one I mentioned earlier):

Rowr.

I mean, we are indeed fortunate to have such capable women stepping up to be leaders.

Pfft, as if.

Not even a contest.

All I got from the last two pages is that we've increased CSPAN's viewership by 40% (four people) this year.

So, back on topic. It turns out that Yes, Virginia, there are repercussions for being a horrible person on the internet!
http://jezebel.com/5958993/racist-teens-forced-to-answer-for-tweets-about-the-nigger-president

Rather unsurprisingly, once confronted, he pulled the I WUZ HAXED defense.

There are several other examples there, and they are all equally schadenfreudelicious.

Oh no, the poor kids who don't have control over their thoughts are just saying things, it's terrible to hold them accountable for their public statements, what about freedom of speech and expressing their opinion, omg its like every word is racist these days jeez.

Take that!

She's pretty, yes, but sorry, still no contest.

Less pictures, more gloating.

I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about this.

-- Giving racist garbage a spotlight gives it undue attention, elevates it as if it were a valid part of the discussion instead of idiotic background noise, and generates "grr people are awful!" impotent outrage instead of drawing attention to the more subtle racism that can actually be fixed. But then again...
-- Calling this shit out by name, and publicly shaming the people responsible, is exactly the way to say "it's not some vague group of those people, it's these idiots specifically, and it's everywhere." And yet...
-- Even when I agree with them, I can't get past the hypocrisy of Gawker sites that claim to take the moral high ground. Especially when...
-- Calling these kids' schools starts to blur the line between "calling them out" and "harassment," especially when you know it's a Gawker editor trying to stir up more shit to stretch out the lifetime of a popular post. But still...
-- If these kids are still in school, that's a perfect time to educate them on the repercussions of their actions.
-- And it's undeniable that there are a lot of adults who still believe "Free speech means I can say whatever I want and not have to suffer any repercussions from it because America." And if we can prevent people from turning into Ann Coulters, Michele Malkins, and Rush Limbaughs, the world will be a better place.

I guess no matter where it's coming from or why they're doing it, anything that cuts out the number of people saying the n-word on the internet is a good thing.

I couldn't get past the quoting of the schools' mission statements. I mean, come on.

That said: Fuck those idiot racist teenagers; I hope they get what's coming to them.*


*By which I mean appropriate discipline from their parents and teachers.

Parents definately, school? Not so much, its not the schools responsibility to parent children.

You're right, schools shouldn't discipline children when they misbehave. My bad.

Children are merely empty vessels at school, into which we pour KNOWLEDGE. But just you know. Book learnin' stuff. Not shit like 'being a racist shitbag will sometimes have consequences.'

Come on. It's certainly a Jezebel writer desperately trying to spin it so that it isn't considered harassment. I've almost convinced myself that it's a net positive to call out an internet dogpile on a bunch of racist teenagers; you're most certainly not going to get an admission that Jezebel and Gawker are anything other than the most transparently crass example of a vertically-integrated Liberal Feminist Outrage Engine. Spin it into something that's relevant into the election, stoke a dogpile to churn up some link-friendly drama, give the people their "ooo racism makes me SO MAD!" quota of the day.

Hell, just the part you quoted: "if nothing else, it's reasonable..." How could that be any more obviously the self-justification that the villains use right before they're taken away in a police procedural?

How else can you dress up a gossip site if not by spinning an US Weekly-caliber gossip story about George Clooney being a homo into some kind of how come MEN never get called old maids?! analysis of society. Here they're trying to drum up the relevance to the election; before they've tried to do it with the popularity of The Hunger Games.

ETA: I got on a roll and neglected to mention the most obvious thing: At the top of that article, they have a collage of Twitter user pictures, not one of which uses school imagery or even references their school. I'd hoped that alone would be enough to keep anybody from taking Jezebel's attempts at rationalization/justification seriously.

I really don't care if it's "desperate", "link-friendly drama", or any other disparaging descriptors you care to provide. Those jackasses are, indeed, racist fuckwits, and calling them out and making their lives less pleasant is a genuinely good thing to do, even if it's done for completely cynical purposes.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things it's largely futile; making those pieces of trash feel bad doesn't fix society in any way. And I hope it doesn't deter anyone from looking at the more subtle, pervasive, and important forms of discrimination out there. But decrying Jezebel's actions as "iniquitous", somehow, seems really misguided. Whatever their motivations or past actions, this kind of shaming is a good thing. It's not a great, important thing, but it is good.

Its the parents reponsibility for something like this, not the school. And nice job making up words I never said asshole.

Back the fuck off, Hoss. I'm going to put a stop to that line of questioning right away, because I've seen how this bullshit works. That's textbook dogpile internet mob mentality. Don't for one second try to spin the rage ship towards "how dare you give racism a pass!"

Anything we do is justifiable for whatever reason, as long as we're doing it to racists! Here's a tip: whenever you find yourself saying "even if it's done for completely cynical purposes," or "Whatever their motivations," that should be setting off every single warning siren in your head. Maybe it should make you ponder whether the world's big enough to contain multiple types of bad behavior: disgusting out-right racism; and manipulating people into giving you ad revenue by taking something as uncontroversial as "racism is bad" and turning it into a controversy you'll link to all your Twitter and Facebook pals.

So... he made up words that you never said, but you just said what he just said.

Step away from the computer before you fucking hurt yourself.

That's not what I was saying, 'hoss". Maybe you should read a bit more carefully. Nowhere in my post did I imply that you were giving racism a pass. What I was implying is that the effect of that article is good for the reasons I stated. I don't really give a fuck about you or your generally histrionic posts; I'm not interested in portraying you as "soft on racism". Honestly, I'm not interested in portraying you at all. You can continue to argue that the article & its effects are bad and I won't for one second suggest that you're racist. I'll merely suggest, as I already have, that such arguments are misguided.

Again, please read more carefully. I didn't say "anything" we did was fine, nor did I say "whatever reasons". I was referring to the specific, known action that was described in the article. And the reasons are also more specific than "whatever": those shits behaved as they did in a public space under the cover of anonymity. I submit that taking away their anonymity and forcing them to acknowledge their actions is a good thing;.

Here's a counter-tip: many of the most admirable actions in history were done for completely cynical purposes. That's just the way the world works. The Marshall plan cynically served US interests at a basement bargain price. It was nevertheless a wonderful thing to do. The New Deal cynically kept FDR in power, but it also greatly helped the American people when they desperately needed help. And so on.

Here's a bonus tip; Whenever you issue advice over the internet that is a blanket recommendation (e.g. "Whenever you [insert situation], [do something]") stop and examine if your blanket recommendation makes sense in all situations. The answer might surprise you!

Twitter's public, tough shit if you get into trouble for shit you say on there.

Yo, Jezebel, why you gotta be a narc? I thought you were cool.

Isn't this basically the vigilante justice that we usually dislike? Alert the schools, but the public shaming is kind of icky. It's really, really easy to make a fake twitter account and post nasty stuff on it.

Whew, I guess I'm lucky Mark doesn't generally care for my histrionics, or I would've gotten an even longer lecture that tried to walk me through Manifest Destiny, smallpox blankets, and the Crusades.

It's "linked" by a writer for a gossip site digging through teenagers' Twitter accounts and searching for their Facebook pages. Only one of the schools was quoted as having a policy against students' behavior on social media; the rest are a bunch of stupid racist kids who don't reference the school in their offensive tweets, and are only going to be "linked" by people searching for one. I think it's dangerous to take anything on the internet at face value, and that goes triple for anything on a Gawker-owned site (except maybe io9). Just saying.

And since SuperJay is acting like we should stay on topic or something:

First: "America I grew up in as a child?" I always thought the whole "brony" thing was limited to dudes in their late teens & early 20s, i.e. who grew up were born during the Clinton Administration.

Second: How are these guys rationalizing the "people want things" and "hard to beat Santa Claus" stuff against the fact that their candidate promised them lots of money & jobs without ever once describing how he was going to do it? Or am I assuming too much of a thought process there?

ETA: I don't remember when the Clinton Administration was, apparently. When I joined this message board, I was told there would be no math.

Tax cuts solve everything.