[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia in the news

Wed Aug 4 06:57:00 UTC 2004

Jimbo wrote:

>I am quite sure that many Democratic activists (perhaps the sort who
>like to call their political opponents "dumbasses", not naming any
>names here) will read our Bush article with similar joy, due to it
>naming some facts that these partisans feel are scandalous, but which
>Bush supporters may greet with either a yawn or even admiration.

For the record, I am not a Democratic activist. In 2000, I publicly 
endorsed Ralph Nader's third-party campaign. (This time around, I 
plan to vote for Kerry, but that doesn't make me a Democratic 
activist any more than voting for Bush makes someone a Republican 
activist.)

As for my use of the term "Republican dumbasses," it wasn't intended 
to apply across the board to all Republicans. However, the person who 
wrote the article for bushcountry.org (the article that mentioned 
Wikipedia and thereby triggered this thread) deserves in my opinion 
to be considered a dumbass. He's a dishonest dumbass because he 
selectively presents information from the Wikipedia article to serve 
his political agenda, interpolating his own editorial glosses in a 
way that makes it sound as though his opinions have been taken from 
Wikipedia. (If you simply read his dumbass article, for example, you 
would come away with the false impression that Wikipedia says Kerry's 
shooting of a Viet Cong soldier was either a war crime or a "sham.") 
He's a racist dumbass because he uses the fact that Kerry had a 
Jewish grandfather to insinuate that he isn't a true Catholic. He's a 
provincial dumbass because he insinuates that there is something 
sinister about having been born in France and because he thinks there 
is something dangerous about being "influenced by Europeans." And 
he's a narrow-minded dumbass because he insinuates that there is 
something sinister about having a friend who is prominent in the 
Green Party.

Of course, that's just my humble opinion.

--Sheldon Rampton