Picking a Fight Online

I’ve been enjoying Stallion Cornell’s recent blog series, recounting his decade-long online brawl with Languatron, both of whom are WAY too into Battlestar Galactica for my tastes.

The internet is a great place to pick a fight for nerds like me.  (I would say us, but I didn’t want to speak for you, Stallion)  I’ve been pretty good with words for most of my life, but never very good at fighting in real life.  In real fighting, I usually let my temper get the best of me and I end up making a fool out of myself, which tends to end up in just laughter.  Online fighting, however, favors those who can carefully (and quickly) type a few words or phrases that pack a nice zing.

However, I must be careful to use my powers for good and not evil… (right, wifey?)

Most of my online ‘fights’ are really just intellectual exercises; opportunities to see if I can reason my way through an argument.  Sometimes, I even purposefully take the other side of an argument just to see if I can make the case.  Call me bizarre, but it’s how I get my jollies.

Here is a recent spat I got into in the comments of the Rachel Maddow YouTube video where she takes Rand Paul to task.  I was gearing up for a good fist-to-cuffs, but “Poonard” put the final button on it that was too good to try and improve on.  To set this up, you should know that I was responding to commenters who were saying that Maddow took Paul to task based solely on a “philosophical” argument, and not practical governance: