Getting Mad on the Internet: Breaking My Own Rule

One of the most basic rules I have for the Internet when it comes to the boys is NOT to fight with anyone you don’t know. Anonymity makes for strange interactions on the web and you never know if you are talking to someone who is unbalanced, but yet still balanced enough to hack into your life. No, I am not being paranoid. I had a friend whose ex-boyfriend, a computer science geek, hacked into her life and she had to get the police to lay down the law to get him to stop stalking her. So no, the Internet is not a place you really want to argue with persons unknown. It is that lone crazy who can truly wreck your world about whom you need to be leery. Now, I do have to admit, however, that I just broke my own rule.

No, it wasn’t about autism. I had done enough of that in the past few weeks. Tweeting against nasty anti-autism comments on television or on twitter too. Writing blog posts about autism-related ignorance and supporting others who wrote such articles as well.

Actually my Internet meltdown this morning, if you want to call it a meltdown of sorts, was when someone called me an antisemite. No, I kid you not. Some jackass objected to my take on an issue being discussed in the Jewish-American community. Then he called me a racist and an antisemite. They also referred to me as “he” but that just goes to show you that they had no idea who I happen to be.

Now normally I would let comments go..OK I really don’t. But when I argue with people its usually on my own blog when they say something mean or inappropriate. I have yet to encounter too much nasty blowback when it comes to things I post on other people’s blogs. OK a few weeks ago I did manage to piss off both extremes of the autism community over the autism hearings (this happened on Autisable when they reposted my blog)…and then someone else picked up an old post I wrote and put it on tumblr.

So I annoyed the “curebies, autism as defect promoting, vaccine conspirators” and the extreme autism-self-advocates who think that society needs to completely change beyond accommodations to suit them and that nothing is ever their fault. These extremists see themselves as persecuted because of their autism and their failures are others responsibility. Nasty and vile on both ends of the extremes to say the least. Insulting diatribes. Needlesstosay, I let nothing go, simply because I despise ignorance, self-importance and that woe-is-me parenting and that “nothing is my fault” attitude by some autistics. Yes, I won….simply because I banned several haters from my blog and on Autisable no one came to these curebies defense.  Truthfully no one came to my defense either, but I think I was doing a good job on my own.

It also shows you the level of intelligence that I was dealing with, when in the middle of the argument on Autisable, these nasty-commenters said I needed “to pray that God has mercy on my soul” and then these same indolent people told me I used mean words. Just saying…some autism parents are not playing with a full deck at times and need extensive counseling themselves.

Back to this morning….it bugged me. Now I know it shouldn’t. It was making me grumpy. So I went back to the on-line magazine and wrote a rather good takedown if I do say so myself.  I suppose the end result will be if those people answer me. I’m not going to bother to look. I don’t really care anymore since I said my piece. I figure that they won’t look me up on twitter. That would show them who I truly happen to be in the realm of politics. Also if they do reply to my rebuttal it will only be annoying and whiny and self-lauding. There is nothing any of them can say to condemn me at this point that isn’t racist in and of itself. What can they say? Try to define just how Jews are supposed to think in lock step and agree to whatever they decide the “tribe” is supposed to agree upon. So, no, definitely no, I won’t even check back.

I know you shouldn’t argue with strangers on the Internet. I know that you can’t fix stupid. I know that it doesn’t matter what some strangers, who don’t even know that I am a female instead of male, say about me, but dumb people just annoy me….Hateful people who can’t defend their own point of view without calling names also are terribly annoying. If you need to name-call to win an argument you really don’t have a platform worth defending. That is what I tell the boys all the time. Don’t argue with strangers on the internet. Be able to stand your ground with logical reasoning. Don’t call names it demeans your point of view (Looking back I did use the word “shmuck” this morning..OK not so classy but it fit the situation)….yeah I know, it’s time I listened to myself.

Elise
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Elise Ronan

Raising Asperger's Kids

The purpose of this blog is to document the practical and realistic approach taken over the decades to help our two sons grow, and develop in order become all that they are entitled to become as human beings.