- May 6, 2024
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By Tony Farkas
When I first heard the phrase “keyboard warrior,” I actually guffawed. Chortled, if you will.
Some brilliant person encapsulated the person who feels empowered and/or vindicated by hammering out a screed, more often than not anonymously, taking a stand against some perceived slight, personally or politically (read: conservative), that created an untenable case of wadded panties.
As time and soft-hearted politicians went by, that desire to speak out against the evils of the world, usually about anything, grew into movements like Antifa, where people destroyed private property, assaulted anyone not part of the group, and took control of large swaths of a city to run as they believed.
All masked, which helped continue the anonymity.
Now our winter of discontent has again grown another head, this time on college campuses, where masked (yeah, that’s still a thing) students have decided to take over the different quads to protest (for the most part) genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people.
There are several branches of this hydra that need burning, especially the one part that really ties all these movements together, and that is going off on a tangent without hav ing all, or any really, of the facts.
The people that fall into these mobs rant and rave based on incredibly incomplete information, having been educated in a system that is incredibly liberal and one-sided. They get their news and opinions from organizations that are decidedly biased and gorge themselves on the idiocy from fellow mob members and their uninformed rants.
They foment rebellion and action of a government without regard to the cost of lives or the damage to history and see things in terms of one group needs propping up at the expense of another.
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To this, I like to quote my favorite author Harlan Ellison, who says, “You do not have a right to your opinion. You have a right to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
For their ranting about genocide of the Palestinian people, these “concerned” mobs seek the destruction of a people, namely Israel and the Israelis. (You didn’t think that “From the river to the sea” meant a highway, did you?)
These geniuses chasing government-approved and paid-for degrees at “institutes” of higher learning also seem to forget that this war started with the Palestinian people, which are surrounding the Hamas terrorist group that took the first shots. Israel is defending itself.
The upshot of all of this is that it’s so much easier to rant about something that ultimately means nothing and has little effect on this country and Americans than to actually do something meaningful. If the turmoil means something grand, then go there. That’s where the problem is.
But to my mind, it would be so much more practical and sensible to actually do something meaningful to address the situations right here at home.
Spend time pushing congresscritters to make meaningful legislation, such as education reform, veterans’ needs, homelessness, energy exploration, recycling — any number of issues that can help us here at home and let the Middle East deal with the Middle East.
Because all that taking over campus quads does is keep students actually seeking education from getting to class undisturbed and unmolested and keeps you from actually garnering the necessary skills and information to actually become a, as the Israelis would say, a mensch (a person of integrity and honor).
Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..