Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to Tom Homan’s complaints about people calling ICE murderers. In first place, it’s Bloof with a translation of his words:

‘People need to be civil and helpful when masked thugs come for their friends and neighbours, and to just follow orders like good citizens. Don’t worry when they come for the communists, socialists, trade unionists and jews, there’ll be plenty of others on the list before you, honest.’

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment with thoughts on his underlying feelings:

You can hear the fear in Homan’s voice

Can’t you? Can’t everyone? Isn’t it obvious?

These people are terrified of their fellow citizens — because some of them happen to be brown or black or women or LGBTQ or pretty much anything. They’re shaking with fear; they’re cowards — to the bone. Which is of course why they mask their faces and wear body armor and carry lots of weapons: THEY’RE AFRAID.

So remember: when you see them, mock them. Insult them. Degrade them. Humiliate them. Because they deserve it.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got two more comments from that post. First, it’s Doctor Biobrain expanding on a line from the post asserting that “they seemed to think that once they were in power, the public would love and admire them for their power”:

Indeed. These people think respect comes with the job because they’re authoritarians trained to think authority is always legitimate so you should always respect the people above you. Just like they think being a white man automatically makes you the most qualified for every good job, so DEI hiring means you can’t be getting the best people. Because that’s actually the big joke of this: If they don’t like someone above them, they not only don’t get respect but are considered to have the job illegitimately.

The idea of earning respect seems impossible to them because they think fear and respect are the same things and not opposites. I’ve had several righties say this despite my best attempts to explain the difference. They were taught to fear authority and call it respect; then wonder why the people under them don’t like them. So much of what we see are emotionally repressed victims still traumatized by their mean parents and dumping that trauma on others. They were forced to fake maturity at a young age and never really grew up.

And yeah, Trump has been craving respect his whole life because his success is unearned and anyone with taste or brains knew he was a clown. Yet those are the people he wanted praise from and he loathes people who are submissive to him like MAGA because he doesn’t want to be the member of any club that would have a creep like him. He thought being called Mr. President would finally give him the admiration he needs and instead he just gets his handlers coddling him and telling him that all dissent is manufactured and his approval ratings are 1,600%. Sad!

Next, it’s dfbomb with a succinct response to Homan:

If you don’t want to be called a murderer then stop your agents from fucking murdering my neighbors.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with a response to Microsoft’s CEO lamenting the backlash against AI slop:

“No, it’s the children who are wrong.”

In second place, it’s MrWilson with a comment about Trump’s censorship record:

I think this is a little unfair. Trump’s presidency has actually been the most transparent administration ever. Case in point, the Epstein files proved this when it was revealed that ███████ ████ █████ █████████ ██████ ██████ and ██████ █████████ █████████ █████ ██████ ███████.

I mean, the ███████ alone should be all the ██████ evidence you need.

Also, anyone who disagrees will be summarily ██████ ███ ██████ ██████.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the pressure ICE faces:

You just don’t know what it’s like to walk the streets as an ICE agent. The person you’re walking by could pull out A PHONE and aim it at you. Some of these phones have FULLY AUTOMATIC recording with UNLIMITED DATA STREAMING plans.

And we’re not even talking about people in shadowy windows with zoom lenses. Last week I heard about an agent who was just minding their business, kicking in some 110 pound teenager’s head, when he saw the glint of a 700mm f/8 Canon aimed at him. Never saw the shot coming.

Dude had a wife and kids.

I mean, he still does. But he did, too.

Finally, it’s one more comment from Thad, this time about Larry Ellison’s propaganda war against Netflix:

Netflix is too woke? Sounds like it’s time for another Dave Chappelle special!

That’s all for this week, folks!