Right Wing Rants

I guess it's the cold weather that has everyone inside and playing on the Internet. And everyone is getting cabin fever—which brings out the worst us, especially in the right wing Facebook people, already a gang that can pick a fight over the most trivial comment.

Anyhow, so far:

• A friend posted a picture of an electric lineman (we used to call them "stump-jumpers"), and I made the comment that they are worth every penny we pay them. This (obviously) led to a right-wing blast saying that raising the minimum wage is a Very Bad Thing, implying that the poor stump-jumper either doesn't deserve all the money we pay him to climb that pole in sub-zero weather or that somehow his wage got cut when the guy at the McDonald's counter got more money.
• I made a comment about how wild things were at Kroger the day before the big freeze. Obviously this led to a rather elaborate thing about the government crashing. I should have seen that one coming.
• Slate magazine ran a picture of people making snowmen in Washington, DC. That led inexorably to a comment about how the cold snap is Obama's fault, followed by a response that all politicians are terrible.
• And, right on schedule, one of my Facebook contacts posted his weekly "everyone stockpile your guns and ammunition" posts. The government is about to fail, he says, so apparently we need to be ready to murder a lot of people.

I draw several conclusions from my two days indoors playing on the computer:

1. Ultra-conservatives are always in a terrible mood, always ready to pick fights. This is a special reason to fear their "everyone get your guns" strategy.
2. No innocent comment, jest, or observation is immune from being politicized, even if it requires a total change of subject.
3. Facebook posts are normally made in anger.
4. I was wise to set this blog so responses are always moderated.