Posted by
Rich on Thursday, August 28, 2008 2:04:25 PM
I have been a Republican all of my life, but like many, I've become pretty cynical about politics and politicians. So I wouldn't say that I'm a right wing zealot, or the ever popular "neocon" (despite having been accused of being such). I do like to hear opposing views, being that I readily acknowledge that I don't have all of the answers, and just occassionally, those other views cause me to ponder the wisdom of my own. Furthermore, I just enjoy a good, hearty discussion of the issues.
I got curious the other day about how those on the left (meaning hardcore Democrats) handle political discussion. I know they're very fired up right now given that the convention is this week. I have some friends that are Democrats, and we chat in a very civilized manner about politics and the state of this great nation. However, while they may lean left, there views aren't what I would call extremely liberal. And even if they were, I know that they would politely consider the viewpoints of others and then respond in a manner appropriate for those that value meaningful and civil discourse.
Given that I don't live under the proverbial stone (in a political sense), I had heard of the Daily Kos website and the fanatical nature its membership. Now, I won't say I was looking for a fight, and it wasn't necessarily my intent to be a "troll", but I thought it might be fun to ruffle some feathers. So I signed up and logged on right after the Hillary speech to see what was going on. The Daily Kos membership was gushing about Hillary and the manner in which she had brought the party together. They also enjoyed pointing out how out of touch the Fox News analysis was, to also include anyone from another news source that wasn't ready to proclaim that Hillary had just sealed up a victory for Obama.
After initially leaving a few short remarks (pointing out that Hillary's speech was really about Hillary and only included Obama because she wanted to assure party support for her next run at the White House, Keith Olberman is a joke as an analyst, etc.) I did try to settle into a friendly discussion of politics with a few of the Kos bloggers. I have to assure you that I was really very polite and didn't denigrate or ridicule anyone because of their political views. But the response I was met with was consistently rude, vulgar and completely ridiculous. It's as if these people (or at least the ones I had any contact with): a) already have the answers, since they are happy to point out how little you know; b) really aren't interested in anything resembling discourse - they only exist to tell each other how smart they are, how evil Fox is, how dumb President Bush is, etc.; and c) left objectivity (and manners) way, way behind at some point in their sad lives.
Here's a couple of brief snippets. I had a guy tell me that Fox was nothing but a propaganda network. When questioned about this, I was told to "fact-check MSNBC and then fact-check Fox. Tell me how that shakes out." Somewhat delusional, right? I had a guy take a picture of his hand while he was flipping me off and post it as a response to one of my messages. I don't remember what prompted that, other than the fact that I was clearly not a goose-stepping liberal whack job. When I questioned the seeming lack of interest in debate, I got this - "This is a site designed to elect DEMS. It also expects a certain level of knowledge and intelligence from members." And I loved this one - "The stupidity of everything you've said here since the moment you got here --- IT BURNS! It burns so bad!"
I won't post some of the most vulgar remarks, and in fact I can't get to them to copy them anyway. You see, when you get on Daily Kos and provide any dissenting point of view, they just remove your post. How about that for believing in the first amendment. Finally, I was really shocked by the number of folks that truly believe that to be a Democrat means that you're right, and the other side is wrong. I had mentioned that we should be skeptical of all politicians, since party affiliation often seems to have little to do with who can be trusted. When I simply pointed out that both parties have had their issues (both ethically and in terms of getting anything done for the country) I got this - "What you are doing is false equivalency making. Democrats don't do anything as bad as the Republicans did when they were in charge. In fact they haven't done anything that isn't according to standard Congressional parliamentary procedure." Wow. My response - "So we're rationalizing the behavior of one party because of the behavior of the other. There are far too many politicians that have simply become corrupt - if not legally, then certainly morally and ethically. And doing things according to standard Congressional parliamentary procedure doesn't mean it is the most productive or even ethical way to do things." And my liberal blogger friend's response - "Standard Congressional procedure is, by definition, ethical. Unless you want to change the rules suddenly when the Republicans aren't the party in power? And just because the Republicans don't want to live by rules they took full advantage of (and beyond) when they were in power doesn't mean the Democrats are doing something wrong. Republicans have gone =-- and with Bush's administration, continue to go -- far beyond congressional procedure and into the realm of outright criminality (including blatently violating the Hatch Act). We know that Republicans simply cannot be trusted with power."
So ends the experiment. My time is a little too valuable to go through that nonsense again. I have always argued against extremism, be it from the left or the right. It seems to be those fringe types that can't and simply won't allow themselves to be reasoned with. That mindset will not allow for compromise and greatly contributes to the gridlock in our government. So I'm here on Townhall.com, hoping for a little more acceptance, a little less vulgarity, and some healthy debate on the direction in which this country is headed. God bless and thanks for your time.