Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I had a terrible headache yesterday, plus  I was just feeling down in general. It’s time to get my mood back on track with a scathing attack on an ideologically bankrupt neoconservative. You remember the neocons, right? Those are the geniuses that peddled the Iraq War to the masses and who also tried to escape blame once the whole thing went up in smoke. If only Obama had kept the troops in this whole thing would be golden now! No, it was a disaster from the get-go. We never should have went into Iraq. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lacking in intelligence or were personally involved with the fiasco themselves. Speaking of the personally involved…

Max Boot was one of the biggest proponents of the excursion into Iraq. Not only that, he has refused to apologize or acknowledge any mistakes with his past support. It’s one thing to be so very wrong, but it’s quite another when you refuse to repent when confronted with your error. Anyway, let’s move on from his ignorant warmongering and get into his latest idea.

Now, he wants to get rid of anonymous accounts on Twitter. The following is an excerpt from his Commentary article outlining his thoughts…

Here is a modest suggestion for what Twitter can do to fix one of the problems that most annoy me and I imagine many other users: the problem of crackpot, abusive tweets…

How to solve this issue? Twitter does some internal policing but it’s not very effective — it does delete some accounts belonging to terrorists and the like, but there have been accusations that a few right-wing voices have also been unfairly banned or targeted. There would be less need for Twitter’s managers to make controversial judgment calls if they simply declared that everyone had to come clean about their identities. Twitter should end anonymous accounts. Facebook verifies the identity of each user, which may help to explain in part why it’s so much more successful. Why can’t Twitter?…

The cowards who hide behind anonymous accounts to spew bile need to either shut up or take ownership of their views for the whole world to see. I bet if Twitter were to end anonymous accounts, it would see a temporary dip in users but in the long run it would clean up the discussion and make it much more attractive to ordinary users who don’t want to be in a discussion space where the loudest voices are the most abusive and mindless.

This is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard of, for a variety of reasons. First off, one of the things Twitter was built upon is parody accounts, which would be gutted under this proposal. Another consideration is the amount of manpower it would take to implement such a plan. Twitter already has problems even getting back to people who don’t have some sort of inside contact at the company. I don’t think this would make things any better on that front. But the main reason not to get rid of anonymous accounts is very simple: they’re valuable.

As you all know, I am not anonymous on the internet. Everyone knows who I am when I send out a tweet or post an article. The more I think about this, however, the more I wish I was anon. In fact, if I could change one thing about this site and my online presence, it would be just that. Had I started out as an anon, the only thing that would be held up for judgement would be my ideas and the words that I wrote. As it is now, people comb through my life and all the events in it, they remark on my appearance, they attack my family and friends. There would still be some of that if I was anon, but it would be much more difficult for people to come at me in this way. I truly am envious of those who are able to stay anonymous. I can handle the attacks, as I give as good as I get. Still, I would have to be a fool not to see that things could be much more advantageous to me if my identity wasn’t known.

There are some benefits with my current situation, but in my opinion, they all pale in comparison to being anonymous. Just because some neocon failure like Max Boot doesn’t like the way anons have flocked to Donald Trump on Twitter and elsewhere, doesn’t mean we should get rid of anonymous accounts. If anything, this shows the power of anonymity. Some people can’t afford to say what they truly think and have it attached to their name. Boot thinks it would be a good thing if people felt more restricted with their online speech, which is why he wants to head down this path. He’s no better than the SJWs who have pushed similar proposals in the past. I want more political speech of all stripes and banning anon accounts on Twitter would not help that goal.

Max Boot is wrong, as usual.