Commenting and making points

There was a news article making the rounds the other day.  It was about how GM was posting a quarterly profit, and may be headed for an IPO soon.  Of course there were a lot of comments, and a lot of those referred to the bailout.

One poster in particular made the following points:

• Bailing out GM not only saved jobs at GM, but at the employees of many suppliers around the country.  So that bailout alone saved a huge (he gave a number, but I don't remember what is was) number of jobs at companies other than GM.
• GM has already paid back the cash portion of the bailout.
• With the IPO the government will be able to sell the stock it holds in GM, getting the rest of the money back.

A responder said something like "You must work for GM".

Facts can be checked, they can be disputed.  Other facts can be reported that show how the original statements may be only half truths.  The responder instead chose to be a spoiled child, pouting for not getting his own way.  He didn't even say something like "I don't think that many jobs were saved" or make any claim at all the the original poster was somehow inaccurate.

Now this is not to say that a little healthy name calling does not belong in an intelligent discourse.  After all, if I felt that the right wing had any honor at all, were anything other than whores in the service of corporate feudalism, then I would be more restrained in my speech, but alas, that is not the case.  So I suppose that those who might disagree have to be given the same latitude.  But only if they have something to say.

Now if I had written that post, and gotten a comment like that, I would have done one of two things.  Choice A, I would just toss it.   Choice B would be a response something like this.

Thank you so much for your generous response,  I was pleased to see you did not disagree with any of my points.  Yes, I imagine you would think I would need to be a GM employee to know any of that, but in fact all I had to do was open my eyes.  You see, everything I said was a matter of public record.  So you can find out things like that too, just as soon as you take your head out of your ass.

So, I don't mind if people don't agree with me, but actually say something.