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Monday, July 31, 2006

Inarticulation 

I have mentioned the beard forum a few times in this blog. It is actually two forums (fora?), one for beard related issues and the other for anything else. Go have a look: it's safe.

On the anything else forum a debate has been raging for the past few days that was kicked off by an innocent comment about George Bush and the "Yo, Blair!" fiasco. Basically the (American) guy who posted thought that Bush (his name for him was Shrubby - nice!) was just generally ignorant and rude to other World leaders.

Anyhow, some days in to this debate, a new guy started posting and the basis of the debate changed to much heavier matters, ranging from Islam to fundamental Christianity to how America had not been bombed since Dubya decided to attack Iraq. He made most of the posts.

I joined in to criticise him for the attitude that nowhere else seemed to matter in his world. America hadn't been attacked again so that was all right. Other places had been attacked (London for one) but, hey, they weren't America.

I was deeply offended by this guy. He represented all the things that most non-Americans find bad about the US. Loud, opinionated and so self-centred.

By the way, I know other Americans and I know this stereotype to be as wrong as the one that all British men wear pinstripe suits and bowler hats. Nevertheless, this man was spouting this attitude and no matter how many people disagreed with him, he would not stand down.

This is where, at last, I reach the point of this posting. I could not post an adequate response to the man. It was not because I wasn't violently opposed to his point of view; I was. It was because I was so angered that I could not think of anything to say that was not personal and/or insulting. That would make me look worse than him (insults and name-calling are really the last resort of the ignorant) and would, more than likely, get my posting deleted by the moderator.

I did make a response of sorts but it took me a while to formulate it. I am not Oscar Wilde, more's the pity, and trying to conjur up a whithering response that was not a blatant insult either to the man himself or, more importantly, to his countrymen (most of whom on the forum have much less bigoted views on the world) was difficult.

I settled for the half-hearted response that I made and to resolve to not enter into discussions with the man again. He's a wanker and doesn't deserve my attention.

There was an ideal five word response which I would have loved to use but could not, for reasons already cited. It reads:

"you, sir, are an arse."

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