The Crushing of Dissent: Secret Sabotage of the Internet Nastygeeks?

The Crush Kerry website may have a problem.

I'm told that whatever outfit is running their commenting software is not only not doing his job properly -- people are attempting to sign up for comments and yet not being permitted to comment -- but then he's rude to those who write polite emails about this problem. He's telling one person she should "go back to Russia" and calling her an idiot.

An idiot, because she was asking for help.

I'm posting this in hopes that Crush Kerry will check their trackbacks and become aware of this problem.

And also, because I've experienced something similar. Back when I started this blog, the Ann Coulter Fan Site message boards linked me, and of course I wanted to read what they were saying. But even reading those boards required registration.

So I registered.

And registered.

And registered.

And registered.

I was unable to actually access the site.

I asked people who were posting there to mention this problem directly to the webmaster. They did, but I was never contacted, nor was the problem fixed.

I emailed the webmaster four times explaining the problem. All of the letters were polite. I never even received a reply.

I don't know if this is coincidence or conspiracy, incompetence or intentional act.

But it seems to me there may be a lot of very left-wing nastygeeks working at these outfits, and some of them may be engaging in a bit of politically-motivated vindictiveness as regards customers they don't agree with. Probably a bit of freelancing their employers don't know about.

I don't know if Crush Kerry is paying anything for the service, but if they are, they might want to re-evaluate their use of that service until the employee involved is disciplined or fired.

Maybe Not Entirely a Conspiracy: A correspondent says that the Ann Coulter boards are among the buggiest on the planet. Fair enough-- but all those emails without so much as a reply?

Ann Coulter is paying her webmaster, surely. So this isn't some gratis service where one can say "You get what you pay for."

Very odd. I'd've never mentioned it, except for the fact that Crush Kerry's webmaster is now calling readers "idiot."

As Kausfiles says: Two incidences constitute a trend!!!

Related Point: Liberals talk a lot about the untrammelled right to free expression-- at least when one of their own is being "censored."

I notice, however, that when liberals actually control an institution -- Hollywood, academia, the great publishing houses -- they're none to eager to help those they disagree with have their voices heard.

Ann Coulter's first book was fairly obviously destined to be a best seller. And yet all the big publishers passed.

Her second book was now very obviously destined to be best seller, as the first one had been; all the big publishers passed again.

I don't know if she even tried to get her third book published by one of the big houses, but I'm sure that even if she had, they all would have passed on this now two-time best-seller.

Mel Gibson's pro-Christian (and therefore pro-conservative, it is generally thought) Passion of the Christ couldn't get financed by anyone; he financed it out of his own pocket. And it took forever to land a distributor; he finally convinced a small distributor to "take a chance" on a film that was pretty much guaranteed to turn a nice profit. (Maybe no one expected it to gross $300 million, but everyone knew a Mel Gibson directed Jesus story, made for peanuts, would in fact easily make back its costs several times over.)

We are currently seeing a barrage of leftist documentaries, and films with strong anti-Bush or leftist messages (The Manchurian Candidate, for one). We know that in fact conservatives number anywhere from 150% to double the number of liberals; one would think that if Hollywood saw potential profits in leftist documentaries, it would also see 150% to double the profits in right-leaning documentaries.

And yet there are none. (Apart from the microbudgeted Michael Moore Hates America, which no one outside of the Instapundit blogcircle has ever even heard of.)

Conservative academics in left-dominated fields are commonly told by their mentors that they have almost no chance of tenure at universities; they are advised to work for a think tank, or pursue their academic interest as an amateur or popular writer.

And the newsmedia?

Are you joking?

I would have a little more sympathy for leftists crying "censorship" if they could demonstrate a bit of the even-handedness and regard for free expression they whine so much about when they are the ones in power-- which, in many cases, they are.

Do as they say, not as they do.

Seems to me the moment they control an institution they immediately set about punishing/censoring speech they don't agree with and using the colossal power of major establishment institutions to promote speech they agree with. And only that kind of speech.

Coulter Boards Mystery Solved: Not any partisanship going on, just an absentee webmaster from whom none of the moderators have heard in quite some time.

So it's not, as of yet, a trend at all. Drat. And here I was all full of frothing rage.

posted by Ace at 05:10 PM

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