Spring Break
Battling on Facebook
Education is key to informed debates
Steve Markley
Issue date: 4/18/06 Section: OpEd Page
So I met this guy.
It was this typical boy-meets-boy, one boy is a smartass writer for The Miami Student while the other boy is a psycho, right-wing sh*t show type of deal. For anonymity's sake I'll call this guy "John Ashcroft's Skid Mark" (or "Jasm" for short, which is really close enough to "Jasmine" to just call it a day). I met Jasmine when he left a Facebook message for me following the publication of my article on state Rep. Tom Brinkman who is suing Miami over its same-sex partner benefits. It said, and this is a direct quote, "Hey man sweet article about brinkman! (sic) ... but a least youre scoring points with all the fags and losers of our school (sic). you must have like ... 800 new boyfriends by now huh!? anyone one of which you could get domestic benefits with ... until Miami LOSES the lawsuit of course! (sic, sic, sic, sic)."
Never one to shy away from the opportunity to be a flagrant asshole, I spent the next month or so shooting back smarmy messages to Jasmine and showing his responses to my friends and family for my own sick giggles, but finally I got a little tired when he heaped praise upon John Ashcroft for his thought-provoking speech about how terrorists hate us because of our freedom (if you'd like to be a speech writer for Mr. Ashcroft you can go to his Web site, just so long as you can make a political argument as if you're talking to a mentally-handicapped 5-year-old).
So I took the time to explain to Jasmine all the fallacies of Ashcroft's argument regarding the Bush wiretaps, even including some really good magazine articles that made my point better than I could. Jasmine wrote me back to say that not only did he not look up these swell articles I'd helpfully cited for him, but he didn't bother to read the message. And furthermore he told me that while I was good for a chuckle every now and then, no one takes me seriously.
Ouch. After the tears had slowed, the snot had dried to my face and I'd held my stuffed bear Mr. Blinkers for a while, I recovered.
It was this typical boy-meets-boy, one boy is a smartass writer for The Miami Student while the other boy is a psycho, right-wing sh*t show type of deal. For anonymity's sake I'll call this guy "John Ashcroft's Skid Mark" (or "Jasm" for short, which is really close enough to "Jasmine" to just call it a day). I met Jasmine when he left a Facebook message for me following the publication of my article on state Rep. Tom Brinkman who is suing Miami over its same-sex partner benefits. It said, and this is a direct quote, "Hey man sweet article about brinkman! (sic) ... but a least youre scoring points with all the fags and losers of our school (sic). you must have like ... 800 new boyfriends by now huh!? anyone one of which you could get domestic benefits with ... until Miami LOSES the lawsuit of course! (sic, sic, sic, sic)."
Never one to shy away from the opportunity to be a flagrant asshole, I spent the next month or so shooting back smarmy messages to Jasmine and showing his responses to my friends and family for my own sick giggles, but finally I got a little tired when he heaped praise upon John Ashcroft for his thought-provoking speech about how terrorists hate us because of our freedom (if you'd like to be a speech writer for Mr. Ashcroft you can go to his Web site, just so long as you can make a political argument as if you're talking to a mentally-handicapped 5-year-old).
So I took the time to explain to Jasmine all the fallacies of Ashcroft's argument regarding the Bush wiretaps, even including some really good magazine articles that made my point better than I could. Jasmine wrote me back to say that not only did he not look up these swell articles I'd helpfully cited for him, but he didn't bother to read the message. And furthermore he told me that while I was good for a chuckle every now and then, no one takes me seriously.
Ouch. After the tears had slowed, the snot had dried to my face and I'd held my stuffed bear Mr. Blinkers for a while, I recovered.
