Generation B-H (Bush Haters)


Tonight and for the last several days, I have paid very close attention to a number of website/blogs/etc that deal with politics in general. The recent scandal of Rep Foley, combined with the ongoing War on Terror has them positively humming with activity. And much of it is very disturbing to me.

Why, do you ask? I am disturbed because of the level of absolute gut-level hatred that the supposedly smartest people in the world have. Who am I referring to? As Bill O'Reilly describes them, the Secular Progressives. Or, more to the point, the students of the SP's, the young, Internet savvy of the US. I have been for a long time a fan of the website Digg.com, but I may have to rethink my patronage of it.

For those who don't know, Digg started out as a user driven technology news website. The latest stories found on the 'Net are submitted to the site, where users 'digg' them, or vote for them, and the ones that get the most diggs get promoted to the homepage and are thus seen more by the casual browser of the site. A while back, I believe to increase their already huge following, they added other categories to Digg. Among the new topics, we now have Political News and Political Opinion.

The common Digg user seems to be young (<40) and technically savvy. No suprise there for a Web2.0 site, on the cutting edge of Internet media. As I mentioned before they are very Secular Progressive. The average Digg user believes wholly in the church of science, the theory of evolution, etc. Which is fine. As a christian, and as a conservative, I disagree with this secular philosophy. But, I have never been insulting toward someone who believed as they do. I dont consider myself an evangelist. I believe in God, that Jesus was his son and that he was sent to us to deliver us from sin. I will never insult someone for not having a belief in God. (I also wont cut their head off, but thats another blog post for another day.)

But, as God as my witness, these people make me want to act in a very un-christian way. These people, when faced (not confronted mind you) with someone who has a conservative viewpoint, get downright nasty. They get insulting, rude, and absolutely cruel.

I was involved in a discussion tonight, on Digg, about an link posted to a website that claims that the US Government made up Al Quaeda, faked the Osama Bin Laden recordings, and blew up the towers to hide some sort of embezelment of tax dollars. Now, fine, it gets submitted and you put your two cents worth in by submitting what I consider to be a false, and frankly ridiculous theory. In the ensuing shout-typing match, someone takes a jab at the President for the accident that happened in Japan during his first year, when he started choking on a pretzel. To the Liberal, SP this is a sign of his utter incompetence.

Now, for those that dont know, my son died at 16 months by choking, on of all things, a pretzel. I have encountered this critisizm of President Bush only twice in my life, once at my job, where a person has a sign on her cubicle wall poking fun of this incident, and here on Digg.

I wrote a comment about the jab, basically saying that people should take more care in what they think is a humorous, clever jab at President Bush. I wasn't seething, angry, or even snide about it, I just said basically what had happened to my boy, and to think before throwing insults like this around.

I recieved a couple of responses. None of them were kind. Not that I was looking for simpathy. I was thinking that I would get a "hey, you are right, lets get back to disucssing the issue" type of response. Not so. One person even suggested that I was making it up. Another said, yes your son was incompetent and so were you for not teaching him to chew.

What kind of people are these? Does the average Digg user have this level of hatred in his heart, to the point of being willing to virtually spit on a persons feelings becuase he had the audacity to point out that such a thing should not be used against the President? Sadly, yes, I think that is who the majority of the Digg community is now.

It is getting to the point now where a site like Digg, that to my knowledge was never conceived as a Liberal SP haven, but as a place for the free exchange of ideas and debate, is not a welcome place for someone who doesnt toe the hate line.

This is such a personal letdown for me, as I have been a fan of Digg since its start. I am a fan of the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, since his days on TechTV, and I even have a sort of 2 degrees of separation" from Jay Adelson, who is the CEO of Digg. (My company's new CEO worked with Jay at Equinix.)

I have thought hard about canceling my Digg.com account, and putting it behind me, and its the best thing to do. I know it wont make a bit of difference to the majority of the Digg community, but maybe I will be more comfortable somewhere else. If anything it will be as hard as canceling my WoW account, maybe more so.