Even though it’s now behind a paywall, the Telegraph website still attracts stupid left-wing commenters

Because I spent a total of 23 years as a right-wing embed in leftist institutions, I have  a very low toIerance for listening to bog-standard left-wing opinions (you may have noticed). One result of this is that I very very rarely visit any website that might contain socialist views, as this tends to result in the political equivalent of anaphylactic shock.

I’ll occasionally follow a link to a left-wing article if I know it’s going to be hilariously silly, and I will happily read articles by non-libtard leftists who don’t toe any party line (e.g. Rod Liddle, Nick Cohen and Dan Hodges), but so much as glancing at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free section or the New Statesman instantly produces alarming symptoms – shortage of breath, soaring blood pressure, voices in my he… (no, I’d better keep quiet about those). The only antidote is to quickly find a James Delingpole article or a page of Edmund Burke quotes or suchlike and I’m as right as rain again in no time.

What I would never dream of doing is leaving any sort of comment at the bottom of any article penned by any left-winger on a left-wing website. I did leave a few remarks after reading various articles by the Telegraph’s Mary Riddell a few years ago, but that was because, while I can see the point of Britain's main Tory newspaper publishing articles by intelligent socialists, I can’t understand why its editors would regularly subject thoughtful, intelligent conservatives to the vacuous drivel excreted by this extraordinarily silly woman – if she’d been writing for, say, the Mirror or the Independent, I wouldn’t have dreamt of hounding her.

The other reason I read very few left-wing articles online is that the vast majority of them are (a) execrably written (b) utterly unoriginal (c) leadenly unfunny and (d) bizarrely misanthropic given they’re penned by people who invariably see themselves as paragons of compassion. The reason I don’t comment on the goofy ones I do come across is that there is rarely any point in engaging in any sort of political debate with left-wingers, beacuse they have absolutely no interest in whether their beliefs accord with reality – as I’ve said a zillion times, their only criterion for holding a belief is that it makes them feel good about themselves. As facts aren’t the issue, there’s nothing to discuss – if a belief makes them feel morally superior, it’s a valid belief, and that’s that. Pointing out that there’s no evidence for the belief will either elicit a barrage of phony statistics or the charge that you’re a fascist/racist/sexist pig who should either be imprisoned or summarily executed for being so intolerant.

So why do so many lefties insist on polluting conservative and right-wing websites with their opinions and/or insults? Why are they infected by a seemingly overwhelming need to engage with an enemy whom they evidently have no desire to convert? I know many children go through a phase of  shouting things like “You’re a stinky poo-poo face!” at other children (and, occasionally, at grown-ups), but they usually grow out of it soon enough. But why are so many left-wing adults seemingly addicted to this sort of infantile behaviour?

I could understand it if their comments were genuinely witty or intelligent or illuminating – the desire to demonstrate a talent or to pass on genuine information is understandable. But why would a left-winger bother to pay to access the Telegraph website and then come up with this sort of thing?:

this is a stinking piece, especially obnoxious as it claims to be bothered about media bias.

How convenient that the professional politicians have the right wing capitalist owned media to blame all Britain`s problems on the BBC. Whom would they find to kick around without the BBC?

Anyone ever accused you of talking ridiculous bollocks?
If not, they should have.

[On George Osborne]: He'll be remembered for being worse than Brown and Darling.

Recovery??? Upturn ??? Yet more Torygraph wishful thinking

Sharing the proceeds of growth is exactly what needs to happen. The wealthy who are currently the only ones benefiting need to share with the rest.

To quote Basil Fawlty, I mean, what is the point? Why would any left-winger pay £20 a year to post comments which seem designed to annoy traditional Telegraph readers rather than to advance a coherent argument? Why not just hang out on sites where you know you’ll be among co-believers? It’s like an atheistic choosing to spend time posting rude comments on Catholic websites (or a heterosexual choosing to hang around Hampstead Heath at night).

Holding my nose, I just visited the Guardian site and glanced through the most recent comments. Even though the Guardian is free, I found hardly any right-wing sentiments. Over on the Mail – also free – I found lots of left-wing comments. Lefties hate the Mail - why go there?

One can’t help but conclude that a certain type of socialist doesn’t feel their day is complete unless they’ve sought out some conservatives in order to yell “You’re a stinky poo-poo face!” at them. Maybe they see it as some kind of “brave” revolutionary act. Or maybe it helps quell the suspicion that their own beliefs have absolutely no grounding in reality. Who knows?

One good thing about the Telegraph pay-wall is that it seems to have put a stop to wholesale trolling attacks on the comments sections by teenage lefties (at least, I assume they were teenagers - any adult doing this sort of thing would probably be better off on some kind of mental health register). These attacks would consist of bombarding blog posts with endless comments consisting of Labour Party press releases or quotes from lefty “thinkers” (if that isn't oxymoronic). I wonder if any right-wingers - adolescent or otherwise - have ever used the same bullying methods in an attempt to stop traditional  Guardian readers talking to each other? I doubt it: we right-wingers tend to be much keener than "liberal" left-wingers on people we don't agree with being allowed to express daft opinions without malicious interference - as long as we don't have to listen to their nonsense.