How's that for a pithy saying? But seriously, I seem to remember that, in netspeak, to "flame" someone is to deliberately say something stupid, designed to get him angry, so that he will respond with something even more stupid and make a fool of himself. I think the term has another application, something to do with gays, but that's not the context in which I'm using it here. The guys at the paper mill used to flame each other for entertainment, but they didn't all it "flaming", they called it "agitating". If the tactic was successful, one of the spectators, or perhaps the agitator himself, would bend his finger in the shape of a hook, insert it into his own mouth, and pull sideways against his cheek until it bulged out. This was to simulate a fish being hooked, and it meant "you have been had". They did something like that in the army, but they called it "blowing smoke", or sometimes "blowing smoke up your ass". I'm not sure where that metaphor came from, but everybody knew what it meant. Blowing smoke could also mean telling some bull shit story and trying to pass it off as the truth. Afterwards, the smoke blower would usually confess to the victim that he had just been blowing smoke, because it's no fun fooling someone unless they know they have been fooled. That's what it was all about, having fun at someone else's expense. To let the victim walk away believing your bullshit story was kind of unethical, although sometimes it was okay just to see how long it would take him to "get it" but, if he didn't get it in a day or two, you were supposed to fess up, preferably in front of witnesses who would join in the merriment.
I don't know for sure that your antagonist was deliberately flaming you, but the fact that he said that he doesn't own a gun himself raises the suspicion. Then again, maybe he's just a gun nut wannabe, anything's possible. You're right, though, arguing with someone like that can be a frustrating waste of time and energy. Then again, some people enjoy frustrating themselves and wasting time and energy, I suppose because their lives are so empty and meaningless that this seems better by comparison. Of course, we at the Beaglesonian Institute are much to intelligent and refined to crave such cheap entertainment! ......Do you smell smoke? Maybe my wood burning furnace is acting up, I'd better go check it out.....Nah, it's fine, must be my imagination.
When we first started corresponding, you asked me what kind of books I read, and I told you that I didn't read books a lot, which is probably where you got the impression that I don't read them at all. Truth is, I do read books on occasion, just not on a regular basis.
I'm about half way through "Me the People", and I've just gotten to the part where he advocates choosing the president by lottery. I don't like this idea as much as I liked the one about making us all congressmen. The Greeks might have done something like that, but I don't think it was on a national scale, if they even had a national scale back then. I'm more certain about the idea of direct democracy, I know that the Greeks did that for awhile, and I believe there are some small towns in New England that still do it. I think it works well for small groups, say up to a few hundred people, but it seems that it would become more difficult as the groups got larger. With today's internet and interactive TV, though, the idea seems more reasonable than it ever was before. Of course there would be problems.
The first problem that comes to mind is how to make a positive voter I.D. on line, and I think I have an answer for that. You know those micro chips that they implant in pets and livestock? I'm not making this up, they've had that for years. They just wave some kind of wand around the critter and they can read whatever information is on that chip, usually the owner's name and address, but they can put other stuff on there too. I have never heard of any animal being harmed by one of those chips, so why not implant them in people too? When it comes time to vote, you plug your wand into your USB port, wave it over whatever part of your body contains the implanted chip, and it tells the computer who you are and whether or not you have already voted on this issue. It doesn't tell it how you voted, just that you voted. They already do this on paper, the voting lady crosses your name off a list with a yellow felt pen to show that you already voted that day. At least that's the way they do it here. I'm not sure how it would work in Chicago where they allow dead people to vote, but I'm sure someone can figure out a way.
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