3:47 p.m. - 2008-02-29
The Huffington Post won't post!
So I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night and he was talking about the terribly mean-spirited comments leveled against Nancy Reagan that were posted on the ultra left wing blog the Huffington post. These vicious attacks were posted in the comments section of the initial news story about Nancy Reagan's fall in her California home. Here are only a few examples of the comments posted after the news story,
"Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here's hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub."
"The old bat will probably steal everything in the hospital room."
"I feel no pity for the b---- who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband's political beliefs."
O'Reillys point was that the comments on the Huffington post equated to hate speech. O'Reilly stated, "Defenders of the political Internet sewer say freedom of speech is the issue. But that's a canard. Hate speech is hate speech, whether it's being spewed by some nut wearing a Nazi armband, or some gnome hunched over a keyboard." This little comment ignited a firestorm on the Huffington post, one column headlines, "Bill O'Reilly: "No Difference Between (Arianna) Huffington, Nazis and Ku Klux Klan."
Anyway, after I saw all of this pandemonium I decided to go and check out the Huffington post for myself and much to my surprise it was actually way more unfair than O'Reilly was even stating. I went to the column that I referred to above and read it, it was by some guy named Steve Young and of course beat O'Reilly within an inch of his life in a horribly unfair way. After reading the column I proceeded to read the over thirty comments left by Huff post blogger gnomes looking for any defense of Bills point of view. There was one small one about a sentence long but it was immediately shouted down by the author himself in a counter post. At this point I decided to act, I wanted to see if I could write a courteous dissenting opinion that would get posted, maybe there just wasn't any O'Reilly fans on the Huff post. I quickly signed up, got a username, and read the terms of posting comments which are located right after every column right before the comments section begins. The terms read, "Note: All comments are moderated by 15 real-humans 24/7; approved comments are published to our site very quickly, but not always instantly!" I then read through the myriads of comments bashing O'Reilly and found one that I could make a really strong but respectful dissenting comment on. That persons username is javarga and his post read,
"To be fair, if you spend time reading the comments on the news stories here you'll probably agree with the general disgustingness of the whole thing.
However, it's absolutely absurd to equate the bile that random idiots spew on unmonitored and unfiltered comment sections with Arianna herself.
All it proves is that the internet is full of racist, sexist, hateful, bigoted douche bags of all political leanings, and that once given enough anonymity, said individuals are more than willing to inflict their feelings on the rest of us :P"
My reply, that the old fair-minded Huff post decided not to post, read,
"I, for the most part, agree with your comments and also think that the internet is full of a lot of hateful stuff etc. However, I part ways with you when you say that this comments section is "unmonitored and unfiltered". Didn't you read the "Post a comment" note at the top of this page that states, "Note: All comments are moderated by 15 real-humans 24/7; approved comments are published to our site very quickly, but not always instantly!"? This comments section is completely monitored and filtered. O'Reilly's point is that the 15 real humans that are apparently on the clock for this site 24/7 approved posts like, "Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here's hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub." , referring of course to Nancy Reagan. The people that you have working for you are an extension of you and if they approve of things that you don't you need to let them go. This is Bills point, the moderators approved of this comment and others like it."
I think that I had a good point and it is beyond reprehensible that the Huffington posts moderators approve of posting the hateful things that were said about the ailing Nancy Reagan but can find no place for legitimate fair debate. Shame on you Huffington post!
You can find the column and comments that I have been referring to here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-young/bill-oreilly-no-differ_b_88828.html
Please send any comments, questions or criticisms to: dscott2278@hotmail.com
