I've got to stop reading the comments that readers leave on online news stories. It's pointless and frustrating and rarely has any redeeming or constructive value. Whether it be about the Tea Party movement, or abortion laws, or separation of church and state, or police brutality... it doesn't matter. The commenters are most likely going to polarize along predictable conservative/liberal lines, and the conversation (such as it is) will offer little or nothing substantive to the topic. What you will get is lots of insults, name-calling, and tired rhetoric. I'd publish examples, but all you really have to do is go to any news site that allows comments and you can see for yourself. (In my case, it's CNN.com and OregonLive.com)

I guess the two things that bother me the most are the sheer hatred that gets spewed and the lack of any interest in being open-minded and potentially educated on a topic. This is just symptomatic of how polarized the country has been for the last decade or so, of course, but it seems that the anonymity of the internet really brings out the worst in people. For some commenters, you get the sense that they're filled with palpable anger about current affairs, but as they feel impotent to do anything about it in the real world, online commenting at least gives them an audience to bear the brunt of their frustration. Others just seem to have an unswerving agenda to advance and no other platform in which to do so. And of course there are some people who just enjoy being mean and insulting -- a troll, if you will -- and there's no more potent pot to stir than the news.

So I'm trying to stop. It's difficult, surprisingly. Something in me wants to take the pulse of the readership whenever a story comes out, and I invariably find myself shaking my head at what I perceive as idiocy or malice in people's responses. It makes me want to dive in and correct them, even though I know it won't have any effect. Why? Why do I bother? I don't want to vent for its own sake. I guess it's because I actually want the real, civil, substantive conversation and I'm willing to grasp at straws to get it.

If this were just a waste of time, that would be bad enough, but these commenters can really rile me up, affecting my disposition for the day and souring my good spirits. Yet, like an idiot, I keep going back for more. Being civil myself isn't the answer, because I've found that my own civility does not really succeed in bringing out the same civility in others. Hatred is much more infectious.

I don't have enough friends and acquaintances of opposite socio-political viewpoints to generate a truly interesting debate in real life, so if I do swear off the online discussions, I may find myself without an outlet for the kind of back-and-forth I crave. Can I stand excising this dialogue from my life completely?

I don't know. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this XKCD comic that beautifully illustrates what we all secretly know:

It's easier to be an asshole to words than to people.