The author presumably went to college and in addition lives in the era of the internet. He thus has access to the most powerful educational sources in the history of human civilization. Many people simply will not be educated. Especially if they are rewarded for ignorance. There comes a certain threshold of incoherence where a person should be simply ignored. They are being disrespectful of their listeners. Of course then I see them upvoted on hacker news, where the average IQ is probably a standard deviation above the norm. In situations like this ridicule is the correct response if it alerts people who might not know any better from paying attention. I am over correcting for the lack of ridicule of stupid ideas that is the norm.
Fox News should be insulted and ridiculed, and so should similarly formatted ignorance from the left. There is no reason why simple fact checking and logical coherence shouldn't be the cultural standard in the age of wikipedia at our fingertips.
Strange things happen if people go overboard about an heretic statement that was never made. Calling "corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism" a "brutal authority" doesn't mean that he is placing it in the same league with Cambodian communism. That's just your unfounded assumption.
Fox News should be insulted and ridiculed, and so should similarly formatted ignorance from the left. There is no reason why simple fact checking and logical coherence shouldn't be the cultural standard in the age of wikipedia at our fingertips.