Category: reader comments

A Trump-ite writes in

March 27, 2020 • 8:30 am

Someone with the monicker “Orcinus Orca” (the Latin binomial of the killer whale) writes in to comment on a post and reader comments: “It’s hard not to be happy with the job we’re doing.“, a short critique of Trump’s mishandling and circumlocution of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. I’ll write Orcinus after I post this informing the person that I’ve posted it. You are welcome to respond to “Orcinus” in the comments, and perhaps I’ll let this person respond. But be assured that the person will know of this post and of readers’ responses. Note that this person claims not to be a Trump supporter.

Apropos, a comment from someone else, which I didn’t post, claims that I am a hypocrite because I used to call out “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but am now criticizing Trump vigorously.

But here’s what Orcinus wrote:

I’m really disappointed by the comments here. Like it or not, Trump is your president. He certainly deserves a lot of criticism, but people need to consider how to work with him so that he does a better job. It’s not helping that the media are being very antagonistic towards him. He deserves criticism, but a lot of it is overboard. Recently, Dr. Fauci asked the media to stop trying to create division between him and Trump. Fauci said that he doesn’t always agree with Trump’s choice of words, but that he has always listened to his advice and hasn’t contradicted him.

Similarly, it probably wasn’t the best idea to hype up chloroquine so much, but it’s a stretch to blame him for people ingesting fish tank cleaner. I’m seeing some of his quotes taken out of context. He is probably naive to think that people will be back in public by Easter, but he didn’t say that they were definitively going to do so. Recently, a journalist accused him of starting a eugenics program aimed at letting certain groups die (as if being elderly is a heritable trait). She was a writer for many highly regarded publications.

Think about how someone like Trump will react to this stuff. He’s stubborn and more likely to double down. He’s less likely to listen to reason the more that he is antagonized. Yes, a lot of people want him to lose the next election (myself included), but this pandemic shouldn’t be exploited to do so.

Lastly, there is a lot of nastiness directed at Trump supporters here. Calling them stupid and ignorant doesn’t help anything. A lot of Trump supporters are poor working class people. It’s a bad look when upper middle class people look down upon the lower classes for being too stupid to vote the right way. While I think that a democrat would make a better president, Biden doesn’t seem to be a great candidate either.

NOTE: Orcinus sent several comments defending him/herself, but also noted that he’s posted here under another name as a “regular commenter”. Investigating that (which is a banning offense), I found that he has posted under at least three different names (not as a “regular commenter”) I therefore have booted him off the site for violating Rule #4 of Da Roolz:

If you try to post under more than one name in an attempt to circumvent moderation or pretend you are more than one person, you will be banned. Stick to one name. If you have to change your posting name for a good reason, let me know by email.

________________________

 

And, in case you’ve been in Ulan Bator and haven’t seen this “perfect” imitation of Trump, I’ll add it to

Another anti-Semitic comment

August 16, 2019 • 1:40 pm

It never fails: whenever I write about Israel, no matter what I say, I get some anti-Semitic comments or emails. (Note that my post this morning was critical of Israel and Netanyahu).

Here’s a comment from “opplevesannheten“, whose email address I’ve mercifully omitted, though he/she has a website that would have appeared in the comment had I allowed it to go through. (The person is, of course, now banned). I’ve linked to the website, which is inactive.

This comment was intended for posting on the “Tarring Steve Pinker and others with Jeffrey Epstein” post from July 12.

TO PINKER:
So you’re going to play the victim card?
How about: 1) You act like a creep / I doubt anyone would willingly sleep with you 2) You & Epstein are both part of the same super special atheistic group with special DNA and “higher IQs” 3) You flew on Epstein’s Lolita Express…
You can try to keep distancing yourself from your super special club, but people are waking up to the fact that your “tribe” 1) runs the pornography industry 2) runs the US war industry 3) disproportionately molests children 4) owns the entire mainstream media 5) runs Hollywood 6) supports Israel above the US.
Your whole premise is promoting the idea that everything is getting better – and for people to trust you (the authority) instead of their own senses. Right now our own senses show us that you were riding on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” *after* he was already convicted (the first time).
Your Ivey league institutions cannot protect you when they’re crumbling under the weight of your lies.

Note the personal insults and, especially, the claim about our “tribe” (Jews, of course) who not only runs the world, but is a disproportionate molester of children (where did that data come from?). Now THAT is classic Jew-hatred.

As for the comment on Steve’s sex life, I’ll just note that he has not been celibate.

Now this dude (I’m betting there’s a Y chromosome in his genome) might be drunk, just a troll, or a true anti-Semite. I’m betting on #3.

A creationist reveals himself in two comments

December 11, 2018 • 8:30 am

The first comment below arrived yesterday at 4:24 p.m., it was an attempted comment—after I got Earl’s second “contribution” below, I didn’t let this one go through—on the post “Evolution denialism from the Left.” The name and link to “Earl’s” site were meant for public viewing. (Have a look at Earl’s two short posts on his site.)

Earl
earlsthoughtsandrants.wordpress.comx

I find information which supports the theory of evolution in almost every internet search result, and then I find contradictory information with a strong scientific backing. How does one go about refuting strong scientific conclusion with unfounded claims of evolution? Please advise.

Now this looks like someone who’s on the fence about evolution and simply looking for information (it’s called JAQ-ing off”, with “JAQ” standing for “Just asking questions”). If I think a query is honest, I try to respond; and I almost answered Earl by referring to my book and to criticisms of creationism by other people.

Then 17 minutes later, the comment below arrived, and Earl’s mask had slipped. This was an attempted comment on the post “More dumb antievolution statements from Jews“:

Earl
earlsthoughtsandrants.wordpress.com

Anti-evolution statements are more than warranted. Evolution is unfounded and goes against anything resembling logic or truth. What is presented as evidence in support of evolution is nothing short of conjecture.

I’ve let the second comment though, and you can find it here. Feel free to educate Earl about evolution if you wish. But be aware that your efforts will be futile. Any person who says “evolution is unfounded” after asserting that he’d found “information which supports evolution” is either completely clueless or, more likely, willfully ignorant.

I get comments

May 28, 2018 • 9:15 am

Here’s a comment from one “Dominick” that arrived in the moderation box. I’m posting it here largely because Dominick claims to be a “mental health professional.” Tracing his email address, which of course I won’t divulge, I found that this is true. Do we really want people like this helping others become mentally healthy?

The comment was intended for my post: “Moving Naturalism Forward videos now online“. I reproduce it exactly as posted.

Free Will exist as does God. If mankind was living in an atopia we couldn’t handle it. The current state of affairs leaves one to question God while it is clear to me that our though and decisions are our own to be later scrutined by the man upstairs. Why? Because the human condition was created by a choice that was influenced by evil. As a mental health professional I see evil and mental health as a difference. Whether one buys into the Bible and it’s events or not there is a supreme being and a evil force at work. The human condition is a struggle and there is reasoning even in tragedy. Human reasoning can be likened by Thomas Aquinas but even above reasoning rains valid if it we’re known. I live in the mystery myself with faith hope and love. Just my humble opinion I don’t sell it. I respect others views.

“Just my humble opinion I don’t sell it.” I think there are two lies there. . .

Kudos to any reader who can figure out what this guy is saying.

Note to readers

March 16, 2018 • 1:00 pm

This policy has been up on “Da Roolz” site for some time, but I have been a bit lax in enforcing it. Please be aware of it, and, if you want people to see your website, connect your real name to that site. This is note #18.

If you post a link to your website, referring us or asking us to read something you’ve written on that site, the site cannot be anonymous; there must be a real named person who writes it. You have every right to keep your site anonymous, but I don’t have to link to it, for I believe people should stand behind what they say publicly. That said, I’m not demanding that commenters on my own site reveal their real names on this site.

If you’re a new reader here, please do look at the commenting rules (link above) before you post. Links by readers to their anonymous or pseudonymous sites will be removed.

Thank you.
—Management

In which I get testy and respond to a believer

June 16, 2017 • 9:45 am

I get tons of emails like the following, and usually I just bin them. But something about this one—its arrant ignorance, its patronizing tone, and the ludicrous “your friend” signature, ticked me off, and so I responded. I couldn’t help it: laws of physics. My short essay he’s responding to appeared in John Brockman’s edited volume This Idea Must Die (2015), and the idea I wanted to die was “free will”.

I’ve redacted the name of the sender out of kindness:

From: NAME REDACTED
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 2:35 PM
To: Jerry Coyne
Subject: this idea must die
Dear Professor Coyne
      I read what you said in This Idea Must Die.
      You can go to the Proquest Newspaper Database and read an article by Richard B. Freeman in the July 20, 1986 New York Times. A massive study by Harvard sociologists found that churchgoers are much less likely to commit crimes than non-churchgoers.
      You shouldn’t preach atheism if it is going to raise the crime rate.
      A Harvard sociologist named Robert Putnam wrote a book a few years ago called “American Grace” in which he discussed his research that found that religious people are much more likely to donate money to charity, even to secular charities, than atheists are. See pages 445-465. That of course is logical. There is no logical reason why an American atheist should care about people starving in Africa. If we save their lives, that will not benefit America in any way. If they die, that will not hurt America in any way. The atheist thinks, “I didn’t bring that guy into the world. Why is it my responsibility to feed him?”
      China has an atheist government. What do you see there? Massive corruption and brutal tyranny. The atheists who rule China are logical. They care only about themselves and a few friends and relatives. In Russia, you see the same story.
Your friend, NAME REDACTED

When I say this guy is a “believer”, that’s an assumption. If he’s not, he’s even worse, for then he’d think that a religious myth should still be promulgated because it makes people behave better. (This is the “Little People Argument”.) That, after all, is what belief in Santa is supposed to do: make you behave well.

My response:

From: Jerry Coyne
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 2:55 PM
To: NAME REDACTED
Subject: RE: this idea must die

Do not write me again, please. You don’t care whether religion is true; only if it has “good effects” (you don’t seem to mention the bad ones, like oppression of women, terrorism, and so on and so on. Would you prefer to live in atheist Sweden or religious Iran?).

As for atheist countries being bad ones, why don’t you check out the Western atheist countries not corrupted by ideology, like Sweden and Denmark? Nearly everyone there is an atheist, and they are moral and well functioning countries. In fact, the correlation between atheism and the United Nations Happiness Index is POSITIVE: the most religious countries have the unhappiest people.
I’ve blocked your address in my email, as you won’t listen; people like you tend to want a correspondence, and I don’t want to hear from someone as ignorant as you again.
And you’re clearly not “my friend”; how snarky can you get?
So sue me: I’m a bad person.

Dare pondus idonea fumo

December 20, 2014 • 3:00 pm

by Grania

Here’s a drive-by editorial submission to the Atheist Ten Commandments list by “It is”.

It is

Seeing as the original No. 4 was about a person’s right of control over their own body, I’m not sure how the unborn is supposed to exercise this control, particularly during the time before it actually has a brain capable of holding a notion of control or autonomy. As we all know where that statement is going, I guess we can also adduce that the amendment would be: all people have a right to control over their own body, except pregnant women; because pregnant women are, as we all know, not really people, they are vessels of the state.

End Note to “Is it”:

Hypothesizing is not the same thing as transcending.
You can’t just state that humanity’s ability to form hypotheses was not made by humanity until you can show teensy letters etched into our cells on a molecular level that say: Made in Heaven, by God (™) or something similar.
Atheists generally don’t actually think lists calling themselves The Atheist Ten Commandments are actually the laws by which they must live their lives. We regard them as points for discussion.