I think I've become an internet troll. I'm actually a little worried about it. It's not that I'm just a troll in general, but a certain topic at a local news blogging site has irritated the living shit out of me. The subject is one I'm rather more irritated about. The problem is, I can't help but accept that most people consider my arguments shaky at best in regard to this issue, yet I also can't help but not waiver from my concerns.
Before I go any farther, I'll explain my pitiful story. My town has recently contracted with a company to have installed a number of cameras the sole purpose of which is to catch people running red lights. It wasn't something we got to know about really before it happened, and it wasn't anything I remember voting on, and all in all, I just don't like them. I don't like feeling spied on.
A big concern for me is the subcontracting of law enforcement to a for-profit company. I really don't think it's a good idea to allow this sort of relationship on any level. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that this is not only a slippery slope but also a very steep slippery slope.
I don't like the way it's effected the way I drive. I don't like the extra fearful element this adds to what driving has become. It's one more concern, the fifty dollar ticket hanging over your head as you approach an intersection that's never proved a problem for you before they mounted cameras that would tag you. Now you approach it slowly to a point, just in case the light turns yellow, and as you enter the intersection you feel you should speed up because it might be changing at this very moment.
The troll part that scares me is my inability in this discussion to just walk away and be done. And it's not like the couple of people I continue to argue with are even making the best arguments. I've been accused of being someone who runs red lights. It's been suggested that I'm ignorant and don't actually have a driver's license. I've been accused of being equal to people who have a mentality that allows them to run down innocent pedestrians who are legally crossing the street. And I answer my real concerns over the cameras, and the same concerns are leveled at me. I don't know which is the bigger problem, the people that make these statements or that I continue to answer them.
I'm honestly done with that as of today. I've been afraid to even check the site at all even for other stories because I know if I see new comments it's all going to be continued, and I'm going to get even more pissed off than I did the last time. I'm going to let it get to me, and I'm going to finally break and just go freak on them. And I know that I likely look like some kind of nutsack about it all.
I really don't comment that often at this site because I find it hard to play nice. I'm better off just trying to enlarge my point of view about local issues and not adding my own nonsense. That's the whole reason I read this site, and I do enjoy it for that. I don't have to play nice in the majority of comments I make because I usually keep it to answering the random real troll or local dumbass, the kind that loves to try and jab the liberals with a stick and rile them up.
And that's what I've got. I'm afraid that in this one specific instance I've uncovered secret troll tendencies. It's a sad need to have the last word that I wish I could chalk up to troll baiting in regard to the dinks that won't just let me have my problems with this. They can't accept that I could possibly think the way I do and must insist on belittling me. I keep jumping back in the fray because they're just so damn intolerant of difference. Well fuck 'em I say.
