Hulk happy! Our local paper has started an “unfiltered letters” section on their website. Here is an example of what one can find there:
And here:
Just beautiful. People quoting spam as fact, calling the SCOTUS ‘liberal’, citing myth as truth: it’s a dream come true, and I hardly know where to start with the debunking.
It’s nice that the junior high school students in your town are making good use of their summer vacation.
The biggest problem with fighting ignorance is how aggressively folks fight back.
Make no mistake: this is the adult mentality and literacy level in a large segment of our state population. It’s scary.
Good luck with that. I made it about a month on Yahoo! Answers. That level of aggressive stupid made my brain hurt and I had to give it up.
Sadly, I fear that your altruistic crusade to bring the truth to the unwashed will be for naught. This is the kind of ignorance and stupidity that should hurt. It is aggressive, determined, blind stupidity that exists on its own plane. It knows no reason, it defies all logic, and all attempts to bring it close to some semblance of common sense will be met with unrestrained, weapons-grade barrages of bile and spittle wrapped up in borderline-incoherent tirades about Satan and Hell and Jesus and sins and terrorism and twisted out-of-context biblical quotes and the rest of the standard bag of fundie arguments that never change.
Would that everyone could be rational and level-headed and open-minded, but unfortunately there is no shortage of people with one hand on the bible and the other stuffed wrist-deep in their ear*.
[sub]* May or may not be missing an “r”[/sub]
Sad, but probably true. But allow me my five minutes of unrestrained optimism. 
True, such people cannot be reasoned with. They can, however, be publicly ridiculed.
Remember, aim low; short, controlled bursts.
Sailboat
You’re allowed to have fun with it. Just remember that they aren’t playing with a full deck, and what’s left all have Chick Tracts printed on the backs of them.
That’s always been my preferred method. I like watching them whip themselves into a lather, but I’m always disappointed when they don’t drown in the suds.
True dat. In fact, I was able to dismantle one argument using Snopes this very morning. Death by Snoperfire. The only response can be: Well, yur a librul.
Fight crazy and stupid with crazy and funny. Write mirror images of their letters, only from a different fundamentalist religious perspective, something they are unfamiliar with, like Hinduism, or ancient Mesoamerican, or Cthulhu. Report on how the gay people have stopped all their political advocacy all over the country because you gave them everything they wanted with the whole gay pride month thing. Tell them how gay pride month put you over the edge and now you’ve caught the gay, and so did your kids. Tell them that in California the Muslims make everybody kiss gay peoples rears. Invent new books of the bible, quote them voluminously, engage these guys in nitpicky debates over ancient hebrew translation, then denounce them as heretics. Thank him for pointing out that “God himself” is an “x gay group”, because that sure explains why his followers are such total homos. Ask about substitutes for the blood of Christian babies, because once the Rapture occurs you don’t know what you will put your in matzohs. Reveal the secret plan between the Muslims and the vampires to split up the administration of Alaska during the unusually long days/nights.
Remember, you can go to the zoo and try to teach the monkeys calculus or you can watch them fling poop at each other. The latter is more rewarding. Have fun.
Not meaning to disrupt the fun, but there is a difference between ignorance and opinion. The quotes given seem more like opinion than actual ignorance. It’s opinion that should be rebutted, but it’s not ignorance per se. It’s closed-minded ranting.
Do you perchance have a newsletter one might subscribe to?
Misquoting/misinterpreting the bible, claiming a dramatically foreshortened life span for the average gay male – which probably doesn’t mean much because apparently half the world’s population will be dead by 2001 – these are not opinions. These are raw nuggets of dumb.
Chefguy, I wish you every enjoyment of your crusade.
I also hope that you’ll manage to open some eyes and minds.
But don’t let the crusade consume you. You’ll be missed here if you spend too much of yourself with them.
Gah. 2001 should read 2011.
Danm typis.
Sounds like some fun reading. Do you have a link or what is the paper’s name?
It’s the Anchorage Daily News. Mouse over the ‘opinion’ tab and scroll down to ‘unfiltered letters’. I don’t know if you can read them without having a login, but it’s free. Just uncheck all the boxes and they won’t send you squat.
At this point, there aren’t all that many people posting to the board, so no worries. And much of the crap is just not worth responding to, as it’s race-baiting and gay bashing. Nice to know someone would miss me, though. Garsh.