Sometimes it's tough being the only one who's right.

With misinformation common on the Internet, and with the difficulty of hunting down honest answers that'll confirm the truth or otherwise of any statement, users very often feel it necessary to base their opinions on the personalities of the arguers themselves. This very often leads to a situation where an argument can appear foolish simply because of the anger of the person making it, and in many cases a combined might of reasonable people assuming the more argumentative person is in the wrong, and posting as such, can overwhelmingly go against someone whose views may be right, but are obscured by hyperbolic allegations and confused, angry, rants.

This quagmire of people basing their views on the person whose statements seem most reasonable, rather than on the correctness of those statements, will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them your concerns about the ability to tell right from wrong on the basis of personalities. Warn them that hot button issues on the Internet typically enrage people and result in many undermining their own arguments through their own anger. Tell them this is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by organizations like Slashdot to provide free forums in which to discuss important topics but that without calm, collected, and reasonable arguments, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how vicious, angry, arguments undermines all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on Internet anger.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

I wish that people wouldn't be such leftist nidjits...

Absolutely. One of the major problems in today's society is that it is almost impossible to have a debate about modern technology, including Internet access technologies such as DSL, cable, and WiMAX, without the heavy involvement of leftist groups such as the Shining Path guerrillas of Peru, the Red Army Faction terror group in Germany, and the infamous OSI so-called "freedom fighters" of the US. Widely known for recruiting young, naive, soldiers in universities, brainwashing them into beliefs such as the moral superiority of forced redistributions of wealth, the bourgeois imperialist bankrupsy of representative democracy, and the superiority of a socialist, common ownership, share and share alike, model for the development of computer software, these groups cause immense damage to progress, which ironicly they hold up by preventing the trickle down effect, the engine of all progress, from having any realistic possibility of success.

While left wing terror groups continue to make their extreme, anti-economic, demands, politicians merely appease them and their demands. Some countries, for example, have initiated welfare state programs, guaranteeing a minimum level of living, while others have promised equal access to health care regardless of income. The state of Massachussets has gone one step better and actually forced their already over-burdened citizens to use open document formats to exchange information in a blatant attempt to pacify the OOO, the infamous breakaway faction of the OSI. In all these cases, state involvement has merely crippled the trickle down effect and made it impossible for billionaires to buy DSL connections.

Such actions have prevented progress, and as such have actually helped the leftist groups by allowing them to exploit the lack of progress as some kind of fault of crapitalism.

This quagmire of progress both being prevented by leftist groups, and the resulting lack of it helping those same groups not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that leftist threats to progress is an issue that is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by right-wing terror groups such as the Contras, Al-Qaida, the KKK, and the BSA but that unless something stronger is done to tackle leftism you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the impedement of progress from leftist groups harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on left wing terrorism.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.