The Dork Patriots Strike Back

Terrorism is the last refuge of the powerless.  It's what you use if you believe the system is rigged against you and you have no other option for protecting what you value.  But apparently, there's a much safer option if you want to take control of your life by bonding with allies and smiting your enemies: The Internet.

While I've long witnessed conservatives waging hard-fought battles from the confines of their living rooms on websites like RedState and FreeRepublic, where they imagine they're giving liberal traitors a thorough thrashing with their strong rhetoric and truth-loving patriotism; we've now uncovered a new battlefront conservatives have adopted in order to fool themselves into believing that they're actually accomplishing something with their meaningless lives. 

They're now using Digg to popularize conservative stories and depopularize liberal stories, by grouping together and blindly supporting/burying whatever stories their fellow conservative Diggers tell them to support/bury.  And one of the biggest of these groups: The Digg Patriots.

Influencing the Wind by Spitting

And really, the whole thing's just sad.  Seriously sad.  Because these aren't truly dumb people.  They mean well.  They want to have an impact on life.  But, for whatever reason, they're relegated to spending large amounts of time trying to influence the world by clicking on buttons on their computers, as if that's some sort of substitute for actually doing something with their lives. 

And I'm sorry, while I'm a bit unfamiliar with Digg (never having used it), I just can't see how this could have any real impact on things.  I mean, most people don't even read the news, let alone get influenced by it.  Hell, you've got real conservatives making real news every damn day and even THEY have limited success in influencing anything.  And anyone who gets their news from Digg is likely to be someone who already has their mind made up and isn't going to be influenced by the stories they read.  It's the people who DON'T read news every day that you need to influence, and this isn't going to get through to them at all.

Yet, for these conservatives, it's all they've got.  This is their plan to take control of their lives.  And while I'm sure a majority of the Digg Patriots didn't get too absorbed in it, it's quite obvious that many of these people take this VERY seriously. 

The Bozo Patriots

Here are a few choice quotes that Alternet provides:

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Whether I agree with Bjornski, Anamaly100, PhilPerspective, Novenator, JanineWallace, UncaJoe; a couple others I can’t think of right now, I bury `em anyway. *ACTUALLY* each of them has been “dead-on, balls-accurate” (an industry term) at least once in the past week or so, and it sort-of pains me to be dishonest by burying them anyway, but then I remember . . . I’m not up for re-election!
-BentheDog

I personally vote for a complete blackout on lib subs: Bury every comment (including the conservatives “helping” to pop the story). No up-votes (no matter how much you agree).
-asami21

I’ve been permanently banned 4 or 5 times. You gotta make sure you got a month or so between [accounts]. …The libs make a big deal out of start dates on profiles after one of us returns from getting permanently banned. Maybe we should have 10 or 15 identities created so the next time one of us gets a permanent ban we could come back with an identity that was created weeks or months before. Kind of like Jeff came back as Benthedog and they had no clue.
-Phoenixtx

And seriously, whether or not you think gaming Digg is a problem, this is just pathetic.  Because you know these people think they're actually accomplishing something here.  This is their power.  This is their glory.  This is just sad.  Really, there are so many problems to solve and prizes to win in the world, and for these people to waste their time supporting/attacking news all day instead of doing something useful really bothers me on a fundamental level.

But...they've found an outlet for their powerlessness that doesn't involve blowing people up, so I guess I shouldn't complain.  Perhaps we should think about creating covert Digg groups for potential terrorists to join and give them a sense of power to their otherwise impotent lives.  That's all most of them were after anyway.