Moving Right Along… Should Would Banish Commenter JBurnside?
One of the stranger tangents this election season took us down was the one wherein people that we’d never thought would read Philebrity started reading, and commenting on, Philebrity. While it’s obvious that we always love new readers, we were also a bit stymied by the onset of knee-jerk Hannity types mixing it up in the comments. Upon pondering it all, we came to the most sensible conclusion we could — having people with differing lifestyles and political persuasions going back and forth in the comments, in general, fosters robust debate, and if we are here for anything, people, we are here for the cause of Robust Debate. But in these last two weeks or so, one commenter in particular has gone above and beyond the call of asshole-duty. His name is jburnside — a reader graciously drew up the depiction you see above — and here is the rope he’s been given to hang himself:
From this post, 2008/11/05:
*****************AMERICA SHITS THE BED**********************
DUBIOUS PARENTAGE—-CHECK
ASSOCIATES WITH KNOWN TERRORISTS—–CHECK
ASSOCIATES WITH WHITE HATING LOUIS FARAKAN—–CHECK
ATTENDS A CHURCH WHICH PREACHES HATE AGAINST WHITES–CHECKWHO KNEW THAT WHEN REV. WRIGHT SAID “NOT GOD BLESS AMERICA BUT GOD DAMN AMERICA” HE WOULD SEE HIS PRAYERS ANSWERED?
From Please Pardon The Lull In Posts, Our Brains Just Exploded, 2008/10/20:
Interesting. My ancestors were slave owners in Virginia. I have in my possesion a will transfering ownership of the family slaves from one brother to another. One thing is certain, slaves wern’t cheap. Within the will, the value of all possessions were listed and slaves were valued between 8- $10,000 a piece. Seems like a huge amount of money for the 1800’s.
From Great Moments In Justifying One’s Own Muted Racism: Citizen Mom Edition, 2008/09/06:
I grew up in the city and left shortly after Goode took office. Philly has turned into a total cesspool. It has been at least 5 years since my wife and I have gone into the city for dinner. Unfortunately, I still must enter city limits for employment purposes but I cross into the city with the same trepidation I have when entering Camden.
Lock the doors, roll up the windows and at stop lights, leave enough room between you and the car in front to make a quick escape if need be.
From Readers Write: Why Can’t We All Just Walk Along?, 2008/08/11:
don’t even get me started about Asians but I’d rather have them walking than driving
We could go on, but there’s only so many hours in the day, and the jburnside catalog of comments is long and deep. Suffice it to say that, about every third comment or so, burnside has a way of saying something unconscionably racist or stupid. So, we ask you: Is that enough to boot the man? As of this writing, we’re not convinced either way. As one commenter has already noted, his ignoble spirit embiggens even the smallest debate. As still others have put forth, maybe he’s a fake! (Although we kind of bristle at the notion of burnside being “our own Stephen Colbert,” as still some others have noted.) What we do know is this: If history has taught us nothing else, it’s that even throwing the question out there will save his ass and make him an instant micro-philebrity. Ain’t that right, Cheesesteak The Impaler?
