More for the Trolling Archive

I usually take criticism and negative comments pretty well, but recently the trolls have just been going through the motions.  In response to my previous post about we-firsters, I received the following comment:

Were you homeschooled by Michele Bachmann or something?

"Government is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else."

Your own spell-check calls out "endeavors". That great private Enterprise (geddit) spaceship Endeavour spelt it right.

Literacy aside, let's look at this post. The first sentence categorises a group of people according to a new collective noun I had not heard of until today: "Me-firsters". Your second sentence then affirms that hating these people is ok.

No...no.. that's as far as I need to go with a blog like this.

What fun?! Let's begin.


First, the reader makes the false assumption that I am a conservative in an ad hominem attack associating me with Michele Bachmann.  Whether or not I was homeschooled and by whom is irrelevant.  But for the record and for the reader's edification, I attended public high school where I was the valedictorian.  I then got a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a GPA of 4.0 and an MS in Bioengineering, again with a 4.0. 

Second, it turns out after 5 seconds of Googling that you can spell endeavor (endeavour) two different ways (thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing that out).  In fact, my spell checker calls out the latter spelling not the former as incorrect.  And just how in the hell would you know what my spell check calls out (clearly you do not)?  You have no clue in what platform I write my posts.  Further, the space shuttle Endeavour was a government project, not a product of private enterprise. 

Third, yes, I did indeed attempt to create a couple of new nouns, "me-firster" and "we-firster".  However, a little bit more Googling indicates that I was not the first to think of this, so the fact that you haven't heard of the noun before is, besides being irrelevant, your own fault.  Besides, the word has fairly obvious meaning and is briefly defined anyway.  I said it was ok to revile me-firsters, not hate them, and so what if I did?  I cannot follow the logic of this final "argument."

Finally, I agree with you, this is as far as you need to go with this blog.  I will carry on without you.  

Now for troll #2 (lawrensj) from reddit:

this is beyond stupid. its an article that says "we should stop listening to people who start sentences with we". i guess it depends on what your definition of IS, is.
(one might argue the author is saying "you should stop listening to people who start sentences with we" imply the author already does this...but i think its pretty much the same)
late edit: noticed this is /r/liber. doesn't the constitution start off with <paraphrase> "we should follow these laws to create a more perfect union"?

First, the supposed quotes do not appear anywhere in my writing.  They do not even appropriately paraphrase any of the points I made in the post.  Talk about a red herring!  Then the whole Bill Clinton definition-of-is business is entirely irrelevant.  But while we're on the subject, I can't believe everyone let's him get by on this.  Of course everything in one's consciousness is dependent on the meaning of "is" or "to be", but the question itself implies an understanding of the meaning of the word "is".  Therefore, if the questioner does not have a strict meaning for "is" the question is nonsense, and if they do, it is a clear evasion.

Finally on the whole constitution business, where could one get the impression that I am making a constitutional argument?  Just because it was posted in the libertarian subreddit?  Not all libertarians are advocates of the constitution or even (gasp) government itself.

If you are going to start your trolling with the non-punctuated sentence, "this is beyond stupid", try not too look like an idiot.  The hypocrisy is just too much fun.