Stunning, really. A rather predictable and not very interesting post goes along with pros and cons and doesn't garner that many tips or recs until "Seig Heil" becomes a reply, then HR'd then a gaggle of defenders and then, voila! The rec list.
I don't know what has happened here. Sure, I read certain posters because I admit to being a voyeur re: the comments. But then something happens, like calling the President a Tribal Leader or the poster responds to a comment with "Seig Heil" and I get sucked in.
Maybe it is because two of my clients are Holocaust survivors -- the faded tattoos don't dull the shock I feel. Maybe it is because my landlord and friend lost his father in one of the Warsaw Uprisings, spent his 6th birthday in Auschwitz with his mother and sister and then came to this country with nothing. Maybe it is because my 20 year old Uncle died in the Battle of the Bulge. Maybe it is those reasons that I find a reply with a Nazi salute offensive. That I find defense of one who would use a Nazi salute as a reply on this site offensive.
I can like or dislike posts and comments. Lots of repulsive stuff gets posted here -- racist, homophobic, misogynistic, right winger, Nazi references. I rarely ask for banning. I won't in this situation either because I find certain posters provide outlets for raging anger.
But -- as with racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, etc. comments, I won't shut up because someone might be popular or known in the mainstream. Lots of people are known in the mainstream -- that doesn't make them palatable intellectually or personally.
We have been allowed to provide our pros and cons -- approvals and disapprovals. It is not our power to ban and frankly, I wouldn't want that power. But if we stay silent when horrible things are written or we support the publishers of horrible things, then we are complicit.
Oh -- and if anyone is interested, the only "posse" I have is pre-occupied in a GUS diary where we try not to smoke, help people not to smoke, support people who want to quit smoking and have a completely congenial and entertaining time. Those folks don't want to get involved in the slop elsewhere.
And if you want to believe President Obama is a murderer or a bigger murderer than Bush or Stalin, that is your right. I don't care about those beliefs, frankly. What I do care about is the continuation and support of ugliness such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, and Nazi references on this site.