Ranting

In the earlier, wild-west days of the Internet, I participated in several news groups whose topics included Open Source Software and software patents. In those groups, if you weren't good at ranting (also known as "flaming"), you would sometimes be marginalized by those who were. As a result, I learned to rant with the best of them.

Jim claims I was ranting in a recent post:

Frankly, Bret, it's hard to take your rants against F9/11 seriously since you haven't (and won't) see the movie.

The rant is the "last three sentences" of the post:

Wish I could say the same for Michael Moore.

As I say, it's easy to make someone look bad by making stuff up. And that is what Joe Wilson and Michael Moore are doing, nothing less, nothing Moore.

That's not a rant. For a comparison, let me show you a real RANT...

...Flame On!!!...

Frankly Jim, it's hard to take seriously the implication that because I "haven't (and won't) see the movie," my opinions regarding the movie should be ignored. Never mind that unfortunately I wasted my time reading the transcript. Never mind that detailed reviews of the movie keep popping up in front of me like beastly belches after a bad breakfast, of which I've read several. But the concept that you can't discuss or have opinions about something you don't have first hand experience with is laughably ludicrious. Following that approach, since you've never been a Republican, we certainly won't take your opinions about Republicans and their policies seriously. You've never personally talked with Bush, so we will just have to dismiss what you have to say about him as silly rants. You've never been to Iraq, so don't dare to have an opinion about what's going on there, or what our policy regarding Iraq should be.

The thing that's especially humerous and rich in irony is that because I haven't personally experienced the movie, I've now been criticized for being critical of a movie which criticizes U.S. actions in Iraq, made by a film maker who has never been to post-Saddam Iraq (I don't think he's ever been to Iraq, but I'm not sure). That's why he doesn't appear in the Iraq portions of the movie. So it's okay for Moore to criticize things he hasn't experienced personally and knows nothing about, but if I criticize Jim's overly inflated impudent idol, I must be ranting. Moore's not ranting, Jim's not ranting, just Bret. Yeah sure, whatever you say Jim.

Jim seems to also think that he's the only person I know who's seen the crockumentary. Nope, not true. I know more than ten other people who have seen it and commented to me about it. Less than half thought it worthwhile to see and those that did are unabashed, apoplectic, irrational Bush-haters. People who would seem to prefer that the country and world be destroyed rather than see Bush re-elected. People who would rather sell their souls than have Bush re-elected. People who would certainly rather have Saddam in power than Bush in power. The people I've talked to who don't have huge hate for Bush thought that the movie sucked big time, plain and simple. You're out-voted Jim, give it up!

There's a long scene (or at least a lot of the words in the transcript are dedicated to it) where a mother whose son has been killed in Iraq shows her grief. What utter bullshit propaganda. No doubt you could have found a mother during WWII to say the same things. Does that mean we should have left Hitler and the Emperor in power? Same for the Civil war and the American Revolution? People die in wars and their mothers are bummed. And not only in wars. People die all the time and families are bummed. This has no bearing on optimal policy in Iraq or on whether or not Bush should be re-elected.

And as long as bummed mothers are shown in the movie, what about the mothers of the 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves? How come there are no shots in the mockumentary of those Jim? Oh I forgot, Saddam sent those mothers to the mass graves as well. Well, where are grieving mothers of the Kurds who were gassed? How about the mothers of the Iraqis and Iranians who died in that war? How about the mothers whose children had their eyes gouged out in front of them by Saddam's torturers? How about the mothers of Israeli children whose body parts were splattered all over the walls of various pizza parlours and markets because of the suicide bombers whose families Saddam paid? Why are there no shots of any of these mothers in the movie? Why Jim, Why? Because the whole damn transcript is one-sided, perverted, bullshit propaganda by a self-loathing, arrogant, money grubbing, deranged, fat, slovenly, stupid, abusive asshole. That's why, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a self deluded moron who makes Bush look like a genius by comparison.

...Flame Off!!!...

So that's an example of what I would write if I were ranting. I assume you can tell the difference relative to the "last three sentences". If you can't tell the difference, or don't care, let me know and I'll use my ranting style more often!