Shot in the Dark

Remora

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is has just picked up a pound of coffee beans from the neighborhood coffee shop.  As he leaves, he notices Avery LIBRELLE sitting at a table.  BERG tries to look smaller, and starts to slink past to get to the door – but LIBRELLE notices him.

LIBRELLE:   Merg!

BERG:  Oh…hey, Avery.  What’s up?

LIBRELLE:   I’m leaving comments on your blog.

BERG:  Uh…OK.

LIBRELLE:   They call you out for being the amoral conservative scumbag you really are!

BERG:  Huh.  Just like my  mom always says.

LIBRELLE:   Hah!  I bet!  And I do it under a pseudonym, so nothing I say will ever get back to me!

BERG:  Huh.

LIBRELLE:  Because conservatives, being shriveled emotional husks of people, will track me down and attack me if they find out who is speaking truth to them!

BERG:  Hmmm.   Seems a little…hyper dramatic?

LIBRELLE:   And my comments are really, really long, because I have a lot to say!  Stuff that will enlighten the mouth-breathing morons that read your blog!

BERG:  And I’m sure we’ll all appreciate it.

LIBRELLE:   You should!  I’m brilliant!

BERG:   Huh.  And then you’ll discuss the response to your comments?  Because that is not only the purpose of my comment section, but really the entire benefit of having online comments; to have a conversation, something from which everyone learns.

LIBRELLE:   Discussion?  Are you kidding me?  What do I, someone with thirty years experience as a liberal activist, have to learn from the brain-dead impotent fat bald hate-filled pieces of shit that read your garbage blog?

BERG:  Huh.   Well, I mean, among my regular commenters we have an M.D, a couple of engineers, a couple of scientists, some accountants, a lawyer or two, some writers – people who actually have to work with fact, logic and argumentation for a living.  You might learn something.

LIBRELLE:  From who?

BERG:  Er…right.

Hey – just a suggestion, here.  Don’t you have  a blog of your own?  “The LIbrelle Point Of View?” One where you are perfectly free to write anything you want, and have the discussions…

LIBRELLE:   …no “discussions” on my blog.  Any fat, bald, white, brain-dead pieces of crap who comment on my blog get blocked.  Life’s too short for idiots and scumbags.

BERG:  Anyway, why don’t you write these earth-shaking nuggets of truth on your own blog, since you don’t really intend to actually discuss your comments?

LIBRELLE:    But I get like five readers a day on my blog.  I can get the truth out to hundreds of people in your comment section.

BERG:  Huh.

LIBRELLE:   Hey, grab me a large latte, skim, extra syrup, organic only, while you’re up.

(And SCENE)

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Mitch Berg

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Comments

41 responses to “Remora”

  1. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Dog Gone,

    Before you leave a comment, please read the comments in the last two posts in which you left comments.

    Thanks.

  2. Sauk Fantoche Avatar
    Sauk Fantoche

    “BERG tries to look smaller, ”
    what is this Sci-fi satire?

  3. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Hey, by the obvious parallel to Mad Dog, you’ve all but established that Avery is female, no? :^)

    OK, not quite, but I couldn’t resist.

  4. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    For the record, I am not bald.

  5. Ian in Iowa Avatar
    Ian in Iowa

    I noticed Pen has copied your satirical conversation format over at his blog. It’s almost identical, except it’s too long, short on verifiable facts, and not funny. Oh, and he feels the need to explain to this readers in a disclaimer that it’s satire! Shows the regard he seems to hold his readers in.

  6. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    DISCLAIMER: The depictions in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or people (living or dead) is purely coincidental…..not to mention pretty darn clever.

  7. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    Dang, I step out for lunch and Sauk beats me to the punchline!

  8. Ian in Iowa Avatar
    Ian in Iowa

    LIBRELLE: Because conservatives, being shriveled emotional husks of people, will track me down and attack me if they find out who is speaking truth to them!

    I realize the statement is one of a caricature, but one that is believable when considering the statements of a certain leftist troll.

    If we’re shriveled emotional husks of people, wouldn’t that mean we’re not prone to emotional outbursts, like anger? Wouldn’t that decrease the likelihood we’d take time off from our jobs and families, potentially drive/fly hundreds/thousands of miles (for those of us not in the Twin Cities) to confront such a person in-person? Wouldn’t that decrease the likelihood of us leveraging personal knowledge of such a person to exact some form of retribution on the person’s wealth, career, public standing, etc.? It needs to be said that I and other conservatives, libertarians, and (classical) liberals don’t condone such behavior because it stymies the free exchange of ideas.

    And the short answer to the above questions is “Yes”, because we either don’t care (because we’re emotional husks, remember?) or because it’s not worth the effort to swat a mosquito with such a pathetic sting.

  9. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    This isn’t about DG at all; she gets far less than five readers a day on her blog.

  10. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    This isn’t about DG at all

    I’m not sure where I said or implied that it was…

  11. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    I’m not sure where I said or implied that it was…

    QED

  12. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    It’s a shame there isn’t a lefty smart enough to “get” the title of this post without the instruction pamphlet, which has been misplaced.

  13. Yossarian Avatar
    Yossarian

    I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out who you’re referring to here.

  14. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    smart enough to “get” the title

    lamprey, however, is much more visually descriptive.

  15. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    Well for that matter jpa, so is a tapeworm.

  16. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    Making up stuff again, to counterpoint being an extended outlet for tabloid press?

    I operate under a nom de plue for a variety of reasons. Anyone wanting to contact me, including you, knows where to find me. And we do permit discussion and comments on my blog; we just don’t permit extended obscenity or threats of bodily harm.

    No reason to look at the rest of the comments; they have been neither substantive, well informed or civil for a long long time. The only reason to come by is to see your lie du jour, and to puncture it with a dose of reality and sunlight.

  17. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Well, I guess it’s sort of checking back.

    No reason to look at the rest of the comments; they have been neither substantive, well informed or civil for a long long time.

    And either have you.

    The only reason to come by is to see your lie du jour, and to puncture it with a dose of reality and sunlight.

    Well, no – you could see that much better-informed people have shredded almost every word you’ve written in this space for the past half-decade or more.

    God bless ya, DG, but you’re something of a legend in your own mind.

    BTW – when can Salem and I expect that claw-back suit that you told me your crackerjack lawyer neighbor said was imminent, back in what, 2009?

  18. Prince of Darkness_666 Avatar
    Prince of Darkness_666

    *grabs popcorn* don’t mind me I’m just here for entertainment and comic relief

  19. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Oh, yeah:

    Making up stuff again

    I’m sorry, DG, but with all due respect, did you sleep through however many years of school you went to?

  20. Sauk Fantoche Avatar
    Sauk Fantoche

    DG sniveled “to see your lie du jour, and to puncture it with a dose of reality “

    OK DG answer this, What academic journal published a paper that thoroughly discredited John Lott’s research?

  21. kel Avatar
    kel

    “DG, but with all due respect, did you sleep through however many years of school you went to?”

    in one of her self congratulatory bios DG claimed that in addition to wasting her parents money at St Olaf she also was a student at the UofM School of Journalism. (as an aside it is interesting to note that DG never claims to actually have a degree in anything)

    As anyone who ever trolled the hippie bars on the West Bank (Palmers, 400, Viking, Triangle) or jock heavy Stadium Village knows, once the clock strikes 12 you start looking for a Journalism Major to take home because, they often had coke and with 4 more beers they looked good enough. Best of all they never said no! So my guess is DGs time at college was misspent!

    here’s verse that covers the heartbreak of DGs college years
    “Well good morning teaspoon, teaspoon give me back my brain,
    hello Reflection, you don’t look the same,
    good morning sweet companion,
    pardon me if I’ve forgotten your name”[harmonica break]

  22. Prince of Darkness_666 Avatar
    Prince of Darkness_666

    I say if Trump gets elected we let DG off the leash and enjoy her impending mental breakdown. Until then she’s on a short leash

  23. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Anyone wanting to contact me, including you, knows where to find me.

    So in other words, you’ll do whatever you want, and if I don’t like it, I get to come looking for you?

    That is just arrogant, spoiled and entitled.

  24. kel Avatar
    kel

    “That is just arrogant, spoiled and entitled.”
    Its more than that.

    There is an emerging doctrine on the left that the constitution and its amendments define NOT individual rights but only collective rights.

    The emergence of this doctrine first became apparent in the 2 amendment/gun control conflict with assertions that the 2nd amendment defined a collective right “of the people” to weapons, specifically the left’s assertion that only the police, national guard, federal agencies and the military were ever intended to be armed.

    Likewise the BLM extremists claim that social injustice due to “mass incarceration” is based upon the notion that it is immaterial whether the individual is guilty of a crime, only that the incidence of conviction should not exceed racial parity (i.e. only 13% of incarcerated persons can justifiably be black) otherwise there is a disparity of collective justice that must be remedied.

    This same doctrine is being applied to the 1st amendment which is the basis underlying the attack on Citizens United. The collective notion is that socially identifiable progressive groups such as La Raza, BLM, unions and the like have (for the time being anyway) an unequivocal right to free speech, whereas oppressive, exploitative, patriarchal individuals and “economically contrived” groups (NRA, PACs, individual bloggers) simply do not have a justifiable claim of equal access to the public commons.

    Underlying all this doctrinaire posturing is the bedrock antipathy that the left has to personal property of any sort, real or intellectual.

    DG sees herself as a guardian, a gatekeeper of those collective rights and quite honestly believes it is her duty as a vanguard of the right side of history to police your blog. She does not recognize your blog as your personal intellectual property. She only sees your blog as your anti-social misuse of the collective commons that is free speech that leads people to the wrong side of history.

    Your blog is your intellectual property, not hers. You should enforce your property rights with vigor.

  25. kel Avatar
    kel

    ok TL:DR DG is pissing on your front step, you need to put a stop to it.

  26. Bento Guzman Avatar
    Bento Guzman

    Kel wrote:
    Underlying all this doctrinaire posturing is the bedrock antipathy that the left has to personal property of any sort, real or intellectual.
    As well as the totalitarian idea that the government, not the people, have rights.This is contrary to the founding ideals and founding documents of this country. It is especially repugnant that there is no democratic support for this. This is being accomplished by extra constitutional means.
    Remeber the Equal Rights Amendment?
    It never passed.
    Virtually all of its provisions have been installed by the federal government using the courts and administrative diktat.

  27. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    In defense of idiocy . . . .

    Some blogs vigorously ban contrary opinions. That can lead to an echo chamber (boring) and to a false sense of universality (How could Nixon win? Nobody I know voted for him.)

    On the other hand, allowing bat-shit crazy trolls to dominate your website makes for frustrating reading and could decrease blog traffic.

    The trick is to let the troll post just enough insanity so readers are reminded how the opposition thinks, and invite readers to comment in rebuttal. This helps polish our critical thinking and effective writing skills, helps refocus our minds on the magnitude of the task facing Americans. And it’s fun.

    There’s a delicate balance for the blog host to consider. It’s Mitch’s blog – I’m a guest here same as everybody else – so I support his decision either way.

  28. Sauk Fantoche Avatar
    Sauk Fantoche

    Agree with JD, DG should be put into permanent moderation and occasionally, should she address in her comment the subject of the post, her comment could be made visible. But threadjacks should be left in moderation along with her increasingly frequent personal attacks on Mitch.
    DG complains about lack of civility in the comments, but in that regard she is perhaps the worst offender and provokes in others, myself included, some of the same intemperate coarseness she routinely displays. So agreed, limited access for DG would help maintain the quality of the discussions.

  29. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    DG; FOS

  30. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    No reason to look at the rest of the comments; they have been neither substantive, well informed or civil for a long long time.

    Dog Bone once again validating Berg’s 7th Law.

  31. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    You know, Mad Dog/”Avery”, it would be really refreshing if you’d actually provide some evidence for your claims that someone is making stuff up. The ugly reality, though, is that after watching your comments for years, the scenario Mitch draws here is pretty true to life.

    And quite frankly, if you want to talk about sources with iffy credibilty, may we point to the things like “ThinkProgress” and such you consistently link? Never mind that you never seem to clue in to where the evidence actually points.

  32. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    Dog is something of a piñata filled with methane. It’s entertaining to whack her idiocy with the ol’ logic stick, but eventually the smell becomes tough to take. A good liberal troll is hard to find, though.

  33. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    You know, Mad Dog/”Avery”,

    Just a auick note: while the scenario in the post above is quite clearly aimed at “Dog Gone’s” commenting habits, “Avery Librelle” was never intended as a caricature of Ms. Gone. Avery Librelle is meant to be a broad, hamfisted caricature of, well, every liberal.

    (“Dog Gone” does, in fact, have her own caricature on this site).

  34. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    But threadjacks should be left in moderation along with her increasingly frequent personal attacks on Mitch.

    I don’t mind the personal attacks – it says more about the attacker than me, honestly. “First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they attack you, then you win”.

    DG complains about lack of civility in the comments, but in that regard she is perhaps the worst offender and provokes in others, myself included, some of the same intemperate coarseness she routinely displays.

    There’s a bit of a chicken and egg here; there are some people in this comment section who say what they think and don’t much worry about social niceties. Same as every other comment section in the world. Some people run into this and try to keep their humanity, even online; I think I do a decent (but far from perfect) job at it.

    Others – DG – clearly don’t; if you read back through six or seven years of DG’s comments, you can see a slow steady degredation in her civility.

    And I’ll take all three of those over the passive-aggressives who think they see hostility around every corner, and just love to tell you how hostile you really are.

  35. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    Cat Scat?!?! LOL!!!!

  36. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    ” if you read back through six or seven years of DG’s comments, you can see a slow steady degredation in her civility.”

    Such is the nature of a Liberals mental decline, it’s inherent to the disease that afflicts them.

  37. Ian in Iowa Avatar
    Ian in Iowa

    And I’ll take all three of those over the passive-aggressives who think they see hostility around every corner, and just love to tell you how hostile you really are.

    I still want to know where these lefties get their psychic powers? How do they know what I’m thinking? How did they acquire this ability to peer into my soul and tell me what I’m feeling?

  38. Bill C Avatar
    Bill C

    They just think they’re that much better and more enlightened than you are, Ian. It goes hand in hand with the way they are wired/indoctrinated.

  39. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    …there are some people in this comment section who say what they think and don’t much worry about social niceties…

    (coyly kicks the dust) Aw, shucks.

  40. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    I was writing about PoD. But I suppose you also qualify, Swiftee…

  41. Prince of Darkness_666 Avatar
    Prince of Darkness_666

    Thanks Mitch. For the longest time I self censored on your blog because of my respect for you. As you can see the last 2-4 years I stopped caring. Still haven’t got DG to respond to me yet. Fingers crossed someday

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