RRTAA!<\/p>\n
I’ve received several thousand comments on my blog over the last few years (10,585 to be precise — including my own). A number of these could be classified as containing racist, fascist, xenophobic, or otherwise objectionable sentiment: homophobia, sexism, support for Carlton football club, and so on. Some comments have been made by openly fascist or neo-Nazi individuals; a number of these, quite frankly, suggest that the person responsible suffers from borderline psychosis.<\/p>\n
Remarkable, I know.<\/p>\n
Others express a more casual, otherwise unremarkable bigotry of the sort that underpins much of contemporary debate, especially — but not only — in the blogosphere.<\/p>\n
At present, all comments are moderated, meaning that I am able to approve or refuse their publication. I adopted this policy in order to prevent my blog from being flooded with neo-Nazi trolls.<\/p>\n
Of all the comments that have been submitted thus far, I’ve published the great majority. On a number of occasions, however, I’ve refused some comments publication: generally speaking, when they emanate from the same handful of trolls. In addition, a handful of formerly regular commentators — including one especially pathological anti-Semite — I no longer publish, partly because they write the same thing: over, and over, and over again. At other times — because they’ve been so delightfully batshit — I’ve published them (if only for my own amusement — the rabid anti-Semite in question reads like a deeply-disturbed neo-Nazi version of US feminist Mary Daly<\/a>).<\/p>\n Some bloggers, including avowed anti-racists, allow open publishing, thus allowing for the expression of (often extremely vulgar) racist sentiment. Others allow no commentary. Most bloggers, however, situate themselves somewhere in-between these two poles, and allow for the expression of disagreement — sometimes profound disagreement — provided that this is couched in whichever terms the blogger in question believes appropriate to the conduct of ‘reasonable’ (political) discourse.<\/p>\n Recently, I received the following comment on my blog (one which, incidentally, follows closely upon several comments<\/a> from an individual obsessively pre-occupied with the rather bizarre idea that the Nazi regime and the (Roman) Catholic Church are one and the same thing):<\/p>\n well the aboriginals have every thing<\/a>. the whites work and the blacks steel<\/a>. near my home the house had abos in it and this is the second time in 12 months they have destroyed the house<\/a>. the GOV have been working on it for 4 months even putting new concrete floor in it replace everything and there not prosecuted. if it was me i wo[u]ld be in goal now. they steel mail broke my windows and the government is just saying nothing. its like the sudanese the government in my town have bought a lot of houses to house the sudanese families. as u know<\/a> they are continuously pregnant get baby payments and go out prostituting. while there husband are dealing drugs. the aussies they have been WAITING FOR HOUSING HOMES for years have just been put back another 8 years because of these scumbags. they are givin $20,000 each when they come in each new cloths everything and r even sent to universities when us aussies cant afford to do this. the afg[h]anis jus[t] blow there boat up and rudd brings them straight in he is nothing except a low dog. when he [f]i[r]st come in he gave people stimulus money that was to make us think he was good but he never told us he was bringing in millions of immigrants in yes millions in the next few years, so i dont give a fuck no more i am a disabled pensioner and i i cant even get medical treatment so come on aussies have some GUTS AND DO SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING RIP THE GOVERNMENT OFF SPEAK OUT. WE DONT WANT THIS COUNTRY FULL OF SCUM MY SONS foreman WAS A SUDANESE AND TREATED LIKE SHIT AND WAS THRE[A]TENED WITH A BROKEN BOTTLE AT WORK AND HOW WAS THIS THE SUDANESE BOSS WAS A ILLEGAL POMMIE SO FUCK THEM TO COME ON RUDD HELP US WE NEED A REVOLUTION. COME ON U GUTLESS AUSSIES BEFORE ITS TO LATE. NO MORE IMMIGRANT FUCK THEM WAKE UP AUSTRALIA BY THE TIME THEY BRING THERE FAMILIES AND BEEN PREGNANT ALL THE TIME WE WILL BE LIVING IN BOXES AND THEY WILL BE IN HOUSES. RUDD IS A LOW LIFE LYING CUNT SO COME ON AUSSIES DONT FORGET WE HAVE BEEN BOUGHT OUT WE OWN NOTHING. CONTACT EVERYONE U CAN PUT FLYERS IN MAIL BOXES CONTACT MPS BUT DONT SIT ON YOUR HANDS. THIS WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED IF PAULINE HANDSONE WAS IN. hey dont forget the fucken indians and chinese that are flooding in australia is full so fuck off ALL U FUCKEN WOGS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The point being, I’m growing increasingly tired of such commentary. At first, I decided to allow such rank ignorance and stoopid because a number of similarly ignorant yuppies maintained that ‘racism’ was a simply a dark shadow of Australia’s past and, moreover, distracted from its gloriously un-racist future.<\/p>\n And there’s few things I enjoy more than proving yuppies wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n I dunno… what do you think?<\/p>\n See also<\/em> : Quality blog debate<\/a>, Scott Bridges, August 3, 2009 | Groupthink<\/a><\/p>\nBonus!<\/h2>\n