Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the it-is-written dept

Our winning comment on the insightful side comes in response to a rather confusing comment on Tim Geigner's post about Nintendo's classic consoles proving that people are willing to pay for what's easily available for free, which accused the post of setting up a "straw man" then went on to describe exactly what the post said. One anonymous commenter racked up lots of votes by pointing this out:

Umm, that's less a strawman and more...the point.

For second place, we head to Tim Cushing's post about the horrendous record of the police deputy who rear-ended a driver at 104mph, where one commenter asked if we ever post any "pro-police" articles and requested we do so. Tim responded in detail:

Short answer is: Yes, we do.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110725/17451715249/how-should-law-enforcement-handle-being-fi lmed-officer-lyons-provides-perfect-example.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131212/15041325 552/canadian-cop-puts-impromptu-clinic-how-to-deal-with-critics-cameras.shtml

https://www.techdirt.co m/articles/20161024/08421935871/leaked-recording-austin-police-chief-tears-into-commanders-fatal-sho otings-use-excessive-force.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150526/10575331115/body-cam-foot age-clears-police-officer-bogus-sexual-assault-allegations.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20 151123/09292832888/body-cameras-save-another-law-enforcement-officer-bogus-sexual-misconduct-complai nt.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170528/11063337468/this-machine-kills-accountability-ong oing-persecution-good-cops.shtml

The longer answer is this:

Police misconduct in the US is epidemic. While the number of officers making headlines for misdeeds is indeed a small percentage of the overall whole, the fact is there is little accountability in most law enforcement agencies.

It's very rare we see law enforcement officers engaged in exemplary behavior. Asking why we don't publish celebrations of competence and basic human decency is a question that answers itself. We expect law enforcement officers to hold themselves to a higher standard. Far too often, it appears they're uninterested in doing so. There's really no reason to lower standards on our end -- especially when our collective signature is on their paychecks -- just to appear more "fair" in our coverage.

I have no objection to publishing more positive stories about law enforcement. The problem is much that's suggested would reduce us to patting officers on the back for not being complete assholes when dealing with their fellow humans.

There are amazing men and women out there in the world of law enforcement. Unfortunately, they're a minority. And, for the most part, they're an extremely un-vocal minority. Accountability begins at the top, but that's no excuse for officers refusing to hold each other accountable when management fails to do so.

This isn't meant as a criticism of you or your concern. I would prefer a nation where stories like these -- ones that often include long histories of unaddressed misconduct -- weren't daily occurrences.

As for your suggestion: do you have some recent instances that come to mind re: police doing amazing things? I am sincere when I say I'd love to see them.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more reply to that same comment, from an anonymous commenter who rightfully thought the request was a bit absurd:

Your request is silly.

There are sites that report on medical malpractice issues. No one is asking them to report on doctors doing amazing things every day.

There are sites that report on issues with legal representation. No one is asking them to report on lawyers doing amazing things every day.

There are sites that report on restaurants with poor health inspections. No one is asking them to report on restaurants serving amazing food every day.

You can "love and support your police" all you want, but if you can't handle seeing some negative articles about them without a need for false, irrelevant balance, then maybe you aren't really supporting them very well.

Next, we've got a comment from aerinai pointing out one more thing that journalists writing about the high cost of cord-cutting always get wrong:

Something else these journalists are leaving out... the option to MONTH BY MONTH decide when to cancel a service... If I want to watch a single show on CBS's streaming service, I can subscribe for ONE MONTH, then cancel it. Wait a year... do it again. Can you do that with cable? Nope... you have a $5 surcharge for changing anything on your account and that pesky 2 year service agreement and don't forget install fees when you want it back...

You could easily subscribe to 1 streaming service a month and switch which one that is and only pay at most $15.

Good luck finding a cable provider that will let you do anything like that...

I feel like this is the same type of journalism like they had when trains were first coming out comparing the speed of a train to that of a horse... "Well the horse is faster in this very short race we set up, so obviously this new fangled train thing will never catch on..."

Over on the funny side, we start out on our post about Trump's recent nonsensical comments about censoring the internet, where one commenter noted that you can no more ban people from the internet than you can phones or mail, and Roger Strong chimed in and won first place for funny:

IPv6 is coming, and they STILL don't have an "I am a terrorist" bit in the packet header.

And Roger is a double-winner this week, taking second place on the funny side too with a response to the TV station suing pranksters that fooled them for fraud:

Gray Television filed a lawsuit against the pair, alleging fraud, conspiracy, and copyright infringement.

WAIT! What about RICO? (Checks the lawsuit...)

They then demonstrated “activities that really anybody can do to promote strength,” like slamming tennis rackets against each other until they broke. They boasted that in their live shows the tennis rackets are on fire when they do the demonstration.

It IS racketeering!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Radix highlighting just how ridiculous the FBI's latest terrorist sting was:

Just to be clear:

They took an actual Paranoid Schizophrenic and actually concocted a government conspiracy to have him arrested.

Let that sink in a while, then tell me who the crazy party in this debacle really is.

Finally, it has to be said that when we published Mike's take on the Daily Stormer this week and waited for the comments (many of which were great) to start coming in, we did have a laugh at the very first one:

Well written, Mike, and the timing was perfect as I just happened to bring my 10 foot pole to work with me today. That said, both it and I will be staying away from the rest of the comments on this one!

That's all for this week, folks!

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