General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: An attempted mind fuck ( otherwise known as psyops) [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)have to be personal.
Those other two words, you are correct to be angry about that kind of language. Personally, I think it is stupid, because it damages one's case by making it non-rational, ascribing a prejudiced label to something that should be more objective damages the perception of the rationale for what one is saying, however . . .
I ask you to consider the environment that we are in: the internet, most posters posting under false names. Now, if you were a Snowden advocate and wished to damage the case being presented by the Snowden opposition, wouldn't it be useful to POSE as a member of that opposition and then to insult all of the Snowden advocates and Snowden himself? VERY easily done and EXTREMELY powerful in its effect.
I'd bet most trolls are not of the obvious variety. And it's so extremely easy to disrupt rational dialogue and destroy any commonalities that different positions might discover and god forbid that anyone who disagrees with anyone else should happen to begin to value any commonality that they might authentically share.