It Isn't All Love, Here In the Blogging Game

Occasional commenter Scott -- who I really enjoy, by the way -- takes umbrage with one of my shorter postings.

No, what happens is the ostensibly reasonable Progressive takes something out of a pr0n gossip columnist’s blog that’s chock to the top with unsourced BS, talks it up with his ostensibly reasonable buddies, and then blames The Right for being The Problem with Politics Today. This happens all the time.

In other words, “When you hear this, you can blame The Right.  See, I told you right here.”  Meanwhile, every other rational being in America has ignored pr0n gossip columns again, as they have for a very long time.

I'm not sure what, exactly, a "pr0n" gossip columnist is. I bet it has something to do with the settings on my web browser causing some normal series of letters to turn into a "0". Anyway, I'm not sure why, of all the things I've written that pissed Scott off -- including ones that he deserved to be pissed about because I was wrong -- he latched onto this one as being worthy of on-blog comment.

I'm reasonably certain I don't blame the right for being "The Problem with Politics Today." Probably mor ethan anything, I blame the media for that. I specifically blame the right for being fantastically wrong on issues of national defense, foreign policy, fiscal responsibility, personal liberty, preservation of the Constitution and probably a couple of other things that don't come to mind right now. On the other hand, I regularly blame the left for things, too, recognizing that paleoliberals in particular are wrong on national defense, foreign policy, fiscal responsibility, personal liberty and the power of free markets.

(So why am I a Democrat? Because the First Amendment is more important to me than the Second, because I believe that the separation of church and state is necessary to preserve religion, and because I mind unnecessary government regulation less in matters of commerce than I do in matters of personal freedom.)

I note, however, the touchiness of Conservatives these days. Every time you mention something they've done - spending the country into record deficits, starting a war under false pretenses and then making military objectives subservient to political expediency, finding new and annoying ways for the government to intrude on people's lives -- they get angry and accuse you of calling them names. It's a lot like the way Liberals object to being called "Liberals." The argument seems to be that the conservative Republicans who've been in charge for most of the last six years weren't really Conservatives (which is, by the way, an argument I regularly made even before Republicans started making it) so Republicans shouldn't be held responsible. I have all kinds of arguments with readers about "smearing" all Republicans with the actions of a few.

That touchiness seems to be reaching something of a fever pitch, of late. Just to illustrate, in the last couple of days I've got Scott posting about how I'm using Conservatives to justify my own gossip-mongering, because he apparently believes that the Hillary-is-a-lesbian rumor is spread exclusively by Democrats. In comments here, I've got Squidley and new commenter Francis W. Porretto talking trash about how politics was dignified and polite until "the left" screwed it up by saying mean things about President Bush -- forgetting, apparently, the millions of dollars the right raised selling video "documentaries" accusing President and Mrs. Clinton of murder and, to reach a bit further back in history, Richard Nixon's accusation that Helen Gahagan Douglas was a Communist "fellow traveler"? I've also got regular commenter Conrad claiming that President Bush shouldn't be held accountable for his extra-Constitutional excesses because the Supreme Court didn't let him get away with it.

What happens on this blog is a small and untrustworthy cultural sample, I'll grant you, but does it seem to anyone out there like maybe the right is undergoing something of a nervous breakdown? I mean, when you're outraged that anyone brings up what you purport to believe and the actions that you've taken in service to those beliefs, doesn't that indicate a psychological disconnect that simply can't be healthy?

Comments

[Conrad]

That's not my argument. But since you seem to be reveling in knocking over stawmen lately, it would be positively churlish of me to spoil your fun.

[Scott]

Por gossip columnist, Luke Ford. So you'll know who you're quoting, pard.

Look, you do this monthly featurette of "here's what to expect from the screaming meemies next." It's only worthy of comment on my own small and untrustworthy cultural sample because it's about the third or fourth time I noticed it. So basically, all I'm doing is pointing out that it's you and Luke Ford doing the rumor-milling, not normal rational people. You'll note that I linked neither Ford, nor the rumors, as I have no interest in that kind of horseshit. On the other hand, somebody around this part of the tubes did.

To extrapolate that into "pissed" or having a nervous breakdown is pure projection.

As for the rest of your speculations in this post, I'll take a pass so I don't have a nervous breakdown. I'm thisclose to one. Only bacon saves me.

[Frank]

First my apologies.. this is kind of long.

Nervous breakdown? Hardly. Do I care that Hillary is or is not a lesbian? no. In fact, I kind of hope she isn't, because the thought of her being more promiscuous than Bill will probably make more men like her then do currently. Because we are all pigs.

Bush isn't exercising any more executive powers than any other wartime president has taken. Has he, at times, overstepped his bounds? Yes. And when he does, our system of checks and balances keep him in check and balanced. I like to think of your commenters as your system of checks and balances, too. You know, pointing out when you've gone from drinking the liberal kool-aid to gargling. Which usually happens when you're discussing Bush.

Spending under the Republicans has been very much out of control, but revenue into the government has also increased.

In 2004 the deficit was $413 billion, or 3.5% of gross domestic product. It narrowed to $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006 and $163 billion in 2007. That last figure is just 1.2% of GDP, which is half of the average of the past 50 years. Lower tax rates have be so successful in spurring growth that the percentage of federal income taxes paid by the very wealthy has increased... Finally, another inconvenient truth is that there have been 49 consecutive months of job growth as a result of the economic expansion induced by President Bush’s 2003 tax rate reductions. (from The Patriot Post)

Republicans have been lambasting Bush for years. They blasted him over Harriet Meyers, the Dubai Ports Deal, Medicare Prescription Drug coverage, "Comprehensive" immigration reform, and forgetting the part where he could veto a bill for the first 6 years he was president. Bush has been slowly alienating his base for years, specifically because he is more like his father than the gold standard of conservatisim, Reagan.

You can spend whatever time you want discussing the reasons for going to war, but the real point is that we are in a war. We have boots on the ground on foreign soil, fighting and being killed. They are also, according the everything I've read for the last several months, well on their way to victory in Iraq. Tribal leaders are working together, turning in terrorists. They have a working security force, refugees are returning to formerly uninhabitable areas, and fewer soldiers are dying every day. Prefacing everything you say about the war by claiming false pretenses does absolutely nothing to help where we are now. False or not, the war is real and the war will have a victor. The only choice we have right now is whether we will choose to win or not. That is why I am an ardent supporter of the war. Because I want us to do everything we can to ensure this war 1) stays over there, and 2)Comes to an eventual conclusion that involves something akin to self governance by most middle eastern states. Something that will never happen should we pull our troops.

Finally, I agree that we are an entirely untrustworthy cultural sample. Right or left, the commenters on this blog are all politically savy. We read the news and listen to debates and have opinions based on what we believe to be best for this country. We don't always agree what that is, but we all know that each of us has, for the most part, pure motives. the general public, however, is populated by political idiots. They have no idea who most of the people are who govern them, and absolutely have no idea what the 1st or 2nd amendments guarantee for them. They vote for a certain party because that's what their family has always voted, whether it lines up with their personal beliefs or not. We live in a political bubble where everyone we read and/or talk to online is politically active. It's easy to forget there are a lot of people out there that wouldn't be able to hang with this blog for more than a few posts because they wouldn't have the foggiest idea what any of us were talking about.

These people will be going to the polls tomorrow and a year from now and helping to shape the direction of our country for the next 4 or 5 years. That is much more frightening to me than anything else we have discussed.

[Squidley]

"Because the First Amendment is more important to me than the Second."

Did it ever occur to you that without the Second Amendment, you would have no way to preserve the First?

Notice also that the First is a grab-bag, but the Second is about one and only one thing: defending yourself from tyranny.

The Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that We The People can maintain all the rest. Without the Second Amendment, the others are no more than chicken-scratchings on old parchment.

[Wally]

Squid,
Are you say someone should have shot Bush and Cheney when they have suspended habeus corpus for certain US citizens? I'm not talking about foreign enemy combatants and I'm not sympathetic to the causes those US citizens were supporting. But I do believe their rights could not be suspended prior to a trial.
Of course none of us believe in violent regime change at home, especially in defense of the rights of anti-American radicals who support terrorists. Consequently, the First Amendment becomes even more important, guaranteeing the rights of those the majority will not rise up to support. I avoided the phrase "protecting the rights" because I want these people to feel the full fury of the law, if they are guilty. Do they deserve such guarantees? Probably not. But true patriotism demands that we run this show according to the Constitution that so many have died defending.

[Tom]

Yes, Squidley: The Second Amendment is the most important. That's why they put it second.

[Squidley]

Wally,

Do you think someone should have shot Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus during a time of war? I'm sure you don't. Are you saying that the president shouldn't have this power? You'll have to tell me.

Tom,

The various rights affirmed (not bestowed!) by the Bill of Rights are difficult to put into any sort of pecking order, since they are all rights inherent to us as God's creation on earth. However, a defenseless people can exercise only those rights that the government allows them to; an armed people can maintain both their rights and their liberty.

Compare and contrast: Neutral Denmark and neutral Switzerland during WWII. Ignoring the geographical advantage enjoyed by the Swiss, what was the key factor that kept the Nazis out of Switzerland yet let them roll right over Denmark?

Hint: it wasn't their freedom of religion, speech, assembly, the press, or right to petition to government.