I'll try to post on Zimbabwe itself soon, but this reflection by Lessing made me think about something entirely different. I'm going through one of my periodic bouts of disaffection with reading aggressively political or partisan blogging, but I don't feel any comfort or shelter in studied moderation, either. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it, but it just doesn't seem worth the time or the bother because there isn't anything I recognize as a conversation going on a lot of the time in many political blogs, nor does there seem anything like a remotely adult sense of weary awareness about the messiness of the world as it is lived and experienced by most people.
Lessing helped me to recognize that one feeling I'm having is that I simply don't trust people who are selling this kind of "idealistic, rhetorical, politics" and yet don't confess to having experienced this kind of heartbreak. Or worse yet, tell themselves that if they can only find the right romantic partner, the next time everything will be perfect and there will be ponies and rainbows for everyone, that it was only this regime, these people, this leader, that disappointed. Or, from what I can see in a lot of American conservative writing, it was the damned political opposition or overseas enemies or corruptors of the youth or some such again that kept all the good magical things from happening which otherwise would inevitably have happened.
Most of the time, it seems to me that trying to write anything more reflective, more ambiguous, more exploratory in a blog is either going to bore an audience that's come seeking their Two-Minute Hate or it's just going to be willfully misconstrued by someone else who needs fresh meat for their own hounds to feed upon. Read the comments section at Inside Higher Education, for one example. There's no point to trying to talk about nuance or complexity or what makes for a good research design or anything else in that kind of back-and-forth.
In most online conversations I've been involved with, you eventually come to a point where the people interested in an evolving, exploratory dialogue, in learning something new about themselves and others, in thinking aloud, in working through things, find themselves worn out by a kind of rhetorical infection inflicted by bad faith participants who are just there to affirm what they already know and attack everything that doesn't conform to that knowledge. (Or by the classic "energy creatures" whose only objective is to satisfy their narcissism.) I used to think that was a function of the size of the room, that in a bigger discursive space, richer possibilities would present themselves. Now I don't know. Maybe it's a product of the form itself, maybe it's a sign of our times, and maybe it's my own unfair expectations or my own character that's the problem.
I'm profoundly tired of being unable to say anything about the candidates without having it turn into a shouting match. I post a mildly amusing video about John McCain, and it immediately degenerates into a shouting match over whether he's, like, the worst person ever, or the victim of a liberal media conspiracy. No one seems to be able to be able to hold two different thoughts in their heads at once:
- The houses thing is a silly issue that shouldn't make any difference in peoples' willingness to vote for McCain
- The houses thing is funny, especially when set to Feist.
It should be possible to debate the issues in this election at a level above "My guy's awesome and your guy is a big fat doody-head". But it doesn't seem to be. I find this profoundly depressing.
Megan writes: "No one seems to be able to be able to hold two different thoughts in their heads at once"
I would say more precisely that no one who can hold your two thoughts is motivated to write a comment, and everyone who can't hold those thoughts is motivated to comment.
Reading the political comments, I understand why Andrew and Ross have turned off their comment features -- the signal to noise ratio is somehow below zero.
After the McCain campaign had made 1001 arugula comments about Obama, I'm glad they're getting the 7 houses jammed up their collective wazoo, one property at a time.
But he was a POW, you know. Did you know he was in Vietnam?
Megan,
Hold fast, one of the ways I refresh my world weariness after reading other political blogs is to come here and read someone that holds these two thoughts at once:
1.) That life and everything about it is a serious complicated business to which there are no easy answers
2.) Despite and because of rule #1, it is often funny.
With all due respect to your open comment policy, a substantial amount of the shouting is due to a relatively small number of commenters. If your interest is in avoiding shouting matches, why not try to get along without people who've demonstrated they have no interest in anything else?
I used to like to read the letters sections of newspapers, and was always struck by the fact that half of them didn't even understand the subject they were talking about. It was only when I started reading on-line comment threads that I realized that the editors of newspapers were likely filtering out a lot more dross than I had believed.
Internet comment threads have revealed just how ignorant and immature most people are. It isn't a sign of the times- they were always ignorant and immature, but you just never knew it.
Don't be depressed, there are a great deal of us out here that really enjoy what you write and appreciate a high-minded discussion. And some of us are even liberals that profoundly disagree yet keep you in our RSS readers.
But, I'm sorry to report, we don't comment very often. We read quickly and then get back to whatever task is at hand. Plus, I agree wholeheartedly with J Mann about the deafening noise level on the internet. Flame wars in comments with people who aren't there to actually learn are a waste of time.
I'd imagine your hits per post are many times more than your comments per post, so don't forget there is a mass of us out here you reach every day besides the idiots that actually talk back.
As to how these high-minded discussions happen? Don't know yet, but the cool thing is that you bloggers are on the forefront of that medium.
I, for one, have faith y'all will figure it out.
I'll probably vote for Obama, but not with any expectation that I'll like the result very much. I am not excited about this election.
Which encapsulates the point: No one votes on the basis of farm subsidies. Or rather, no one who wants to see them smaller. Ditto with tariffs on Brazilian ethanol (and to a lesser extent, free trade in general) or any of a host of similar good-government issues where elite opinion is relatively unified. It's just almost never a tiebreaker for people. (Though there is a case that the president can only do so much, though I'd rather have a president who could do little stymied by an opposition Congress than the reverse most of the time anyway.) Is it any wonder we get the results we do?
I'm a reluctant McCain supporter, and I think the houses thing is kinda hilarious. I have no problem holding both of those ideas in my mind, but after I laughed at the Feist video, I couldn't think of anyone I could share it with who would refrain from either condemning it or taking it as an opporunity to bash the wealthy.
This is a decent example of why, interested though I am, I don't talk politics with people anymore. I have only a couple of friends with whom I can get into it without ending up with hurt feelings all around.
On a related note, I was stunned a couple weeks ago by how many people were experts on the Georgia-Russia conflict but had not not written a word on it until then. Everyone knew who was right, who was wrong, and what should be done.
And, just as surprisingly, their opinons on the conflict were in perfect alignment with their opinions on other issues. If they hated Bush, then the esaclation of the conflict was his fault, an inevitable result of his failed policies. Hawks saw this as a natural result of failing to "get tough" with Putin. And so on...
Would it be too much for someone to admit, "Gee, I didn't see this coming. I'm not sure what it means. I'll have to read and think about it some."
Everyone wants to get rid of non-constructive debate and illegitimate arguments; no one can agree on what's non-constructive and illegitimate. The oldest, most tried-and-true way to eliminate your opponent's argument without actually arguing against it is to declare that it violates some sort of grand laws of propriety and decorum. What's the first thing someone does when they can't think of a comeback in a blog forum? Call their opponent a troll. This guy Burke thinks that he doesn't like certain kinds of argument, certain forms of argument, but the truth is he just doesn't want to be argued with. Like many people. Well, sorry, the freedom to express ourselves means your going to hear things you don't like. You can't sneak past that by declaring some arguments "just not serious."
I'd echo Tom B.'s comments - especially about having faith. The elevated debate you'd like to have is taking place on your blog and on others. It's just not taking place in the comments sections.
It's not worth giving any thought to thoughtless comments.
I do not believe that my vote is going to immanentize the eschaton.
Now THAT is great phrasing, and I agree heartily.
fnord.
"This guy Burke thinks that he doesn't like certain kinds of argument, certain forms of argument, but the truth is he just doesn't want to be argued with."
I take it you're not familiar with Tim Burke?
What's the first thing someone does when they can't think of a comeback in a blog forum? Call their opponent a troll.
Or call them racists.
Oh, sorry, that's just me trolling.
This is kinda naive: if you post a piece of political propaganda without comment, why would you expect the comments on the piece to approximate some sort of Socratic dialogue?
The quality of the comments stands in direct proportion to the quality of the posts.
Write long, nuanced, thoughtful posts, and you'll get long, nuanced comments. Take weird, marginalized stances on issues, and expect to get weird, idiosyncratic responses (you are aware that libertarianism and veganism are weird, marginalized stances, aren't you?) Post quick shots, and the comments will be quick shots as well.
"The Belmont Club" is the only site that I know that manages to have comments that improve the reading experience, most website, the comments add little. I am not sure what Mr Fernandez, does to enable the people commenting on his website to improve the original article, but he has managed to have reader that are able to add insights to the original post.
As for me, I can barely contain my indifference. We all weigh our political options differently, and heated argument is more common for those who have already made their minds up for or against Candidate X.
And as for civil war breaking out in the comment sections, I think it's par for the course unless the blogger chooses some proactive "law-and-order" editing. Any time presidential preferences come up, you'll find the same folks reciting their oppo research talking points.
FWIW, I enjoy blogs with comments. But not every blog posting is of equal interest, nor does each post attract comments that appeal to me. At present, I find overt Obama devotees to be too much: Your past and present colleagues Yglesias and Sullivan bore me with their single-minded tedious boosterism.
But hey, it's a big internet out there, so there's something out there for everyone.
This was a great post. That is exactly my mentality when it comes to this stuff. Election years are hilarious and incredibly depressing at the same time.
People get so fired up about which clone to vote for, when either way we're screwed. Both now and in '04, questioning one candidate automatically puts you in the other ones camp. Can we get 'none of the above' on the national ballot?
"And I say your 3 cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough!"
I whole-heartedly agree. The executive branch of our government has too much power.
That means that I must consider most seriously who I feel is better able to hold that power -- because no mater how I want it, it won't diminish in November. Under the current system, I'd I prefer divided government, with the division between the Legislative and Executive. But given the last eight seven years, I'm leaning far to the left, looking for a market correction. I'm certain it will prove to be an overcorrection. But conservative principles have not been what they claimed; it's been okay to say one thing while doing the opposite; a habit the GOP needs to prune away as dead wood.
Equally important is the environment needed to roll back the power the president has. Which candidate will offer the best chance of returning balance to the government?
There's also the more important international question. You could phrase it many ways, but right now, the form it takes in my mind is, "Is this excess of power an excess for the President, or an excess for the US?" Right now, we live in a nation where even asking a question like that frequently draws condemnation as being on the verge of treason. As a reformed journalist, I find that troublesome.
And as a reformed journalist, I also wonder what sort of changes need to happen in our free press to lessen the power of the US Executive; the press serves the roll of educator in our national dialogue, and seem to be failing at their job at about the same rate our schools are failing.
I whole-heartedly agree. The executive branch of our government has too much power.
That means that I must consider most seriously who I feel is better able to hold that power -- because no mater how I want it, it won't diminish in November. Under the current system, I'd I prefer divided government, with the division between the Legislative and Executive. But given the last eight seven years, I'm leaning far to the left, looking for a market correction. I'm certain it will prove to be an overcorrection. But conservative principles have not been what they claimed; it's been okay to say one thing while doing the opposite; a habit the GOP needs to prune away as dead wood.
Equally important is the environment needed to roll back the power the president has. Which candidate will offer the best chance of returning balance to the government?
There's also the more important international question. You could phrase it many ways, but right now, the form it takes in my mind is, "Is this excess of power an excess for the President, or an excess for the US?" Right now, we live in a nation where even asking a question like that frequently draws condemnation as being on the verge of treason. As a reformed journalist, I find that troublesome.
And as a reformed journalist, I also wonder what sort of changes need to happen in our free press to lessen the power of the US Executive; the press serves the roll of educator in our national dialogue, and seem to be failing at their job at about the same rate our schools are failing.
Ah, but Freddie, some people are trolls. Disagreement is not trolling. Disagreeing without bothering to try to understand the other person is trolling.
And let me clear, understanding is not a synonym for agreeing. It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. If the only way someone can deal with a contrary opinion is to insult the person who holds it, there's no worthwhile conversation to be had.
I enjoy disagreement. It makes me more closely examine my own opinions and informs me on how others think. Insults are boring - I've got better things to do with my time than engage in a virtual pissing match.
I'm not sure this is always the case though -- there are certain thoughts we shouln't entertain, and entertaining them is a sign of a lack of a gag reflex.
If I were to post about how, in spite of the negative part of human rights, slavery may have been a more economically efficient system, I would not expect people to chin-strokingly entertain the thought.
For me, studied moderation comes from having the right motivation.
I started doing this back in college, on Usenet (newcomers probably know it as groups.google.com). For some reason, the first thing that struck me when I'd read the alt. or talk. forums was not that I should jump in, take a side, and start flinging mud, but rather, hey, I can see where both sides are coming from. At the same time, I told myself that if the preconceived beliefs I did have were worth a damn, then I should be able to defend them without ad hominem, non sequitur, or really any high-falutin' Latin at all.
Results were mixed, which isn't surprising in hindsight. Some of my views are views I no longer hold; some are unimportant; some turn out to hold strong to this day, over 15 years later. One of the latter was the motivation itself: mudslinging is fun for a while, but moderated dialogue yields deeper fulfillment.
Of course, there are downsides. Not everyone wants to play that moderation game. (I like to think it's still a growing movement.) Doing it requires patience, building a reputation, diligence, research. If I notice any part of me is sympathetic to an argument, even one for a side I'm not initially on, I have to be honest: it weakens my side somewhat, and strengthens the other. It's worth knowing why. I have to think about it, engage the opponent, flesh it out. None of the big issues is going to be settled with some sort of rhetorical epic deathblow or devastating real-world event. School shootings don't kill gun rights; Heller didn't kill gun control. They slip a little, but the underpinnings will always be there, and the advocates will be nursing their wounds, until the next generation if necessary.
It takes a lot of time and effort. I doubt I comment enough here to be remembered, for example, and when I do, I admit that moderation hasn't always been my goal. But if the issues of the day really have that great an impact on so many lives, then sooner or later, it becomes worth spending that time and effort. I'm glad there are places that encourage it.
SG - well said
Megan - You were for divided government back when that meant voting for a Democratic candidate. Now you're for unified government if it means Democratic unity. This seems inconsistant. What happened?
John - If I were to post about how, in spite of the negative part of human rights, slavery may have been a more economically efficient system
Except that
1. Slavery wasn't more economically efficient.
2. It's fair to deride economic efficiency as the highest standard.
The problems come when people start inferring other people's standards, as they often do, based on very little evidence, a sort of 'gag reflex'. You disagree with me? It must be because you have some kind of personal flaw, bad motives, etc!
People are very bad at reading other people's hearts, but very self assured that they can do it all the same.
Megan, I know exactly what you are going through.
Some time ago, I went to my boss and said that I appreciated my job, but I was getting tired of doing X, Y, and Z. My boss responded that X, Y, and Z was what 90% of my job entailed, and did I want him to stop paying me.
I said, no, the getting paid part is really what I like best about the job. He then said I should get back to the X, Y, and Z parts of work, or the getting paid part would be coming to an end PDQ (pretty darn quickly), cause he did not hire me for the A, B, and C parts of the job, where A was drinking coffee, B was sitting around on my fat butt, and C was messing around on the Internet.
Of course, A, B, and C are my core competencies, because what you love is often what you do best, but somehow my boss could not understand that, and has piled on even more X, Y, and Z, as well as W, which I hate most of all.
I'm just saying, some things come with the job.
SG lectures: "Disagreement is not trolling. Disagreeing without bothering to try to understand the other person is trolling."
I know full well that I don't want to hear lectures like these from a right-winger - not after 7+ years of a Troll Presidency.
John McCain is a lying, out-of-touch elitist who's also a gigolo with a pill-popping homewrecking whore for a wife. Sound harsh? Sound childish? Sure it is, but right-wingers should just nod their heads and agree with it, because that's what they did 4 years ago when the Bushpigs savaged John Kerry with these sorts of accusations and the right-wingers thought it was all great fun.
I hope Obama and the Dems UNLOAD every bit of filth they have to in order to win, because the last 7+ years have made me ashamed to be an American. If McCain wins it will be a sick validation of every heinous, cowardly moment of Dumbya's reign, and that simply must not happen.
From Glenn Greenwald, by way of Sullivan:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/if-kerry-was-a.html
I voted for Bush in 2004, so my record isn't particularly inconsistent.
No one votes on the basis of farm subsidies. Or rather, no one who wants to see them smaller. Ditto with tariffs on Brazilian ethanol (and to a lesser extent, free trade in general) or any of a host of similar good-government issues where elite opinion is relatively unified.
I do. Its a tie-breaker for me.
Important issues:
Iraq - w/ new Iraqi proposed timetable - tie
Immigration - tie
Economy - both have pros and cons - tie
Good Government Issues - Reduce earmarks, remove trade barriers, reduce farm subsidies - advantage McCain
(I didn't list health care because it's not a big issue for me personally, but I acknowledge it is for many people)
Out of genuine interest -- is there an election you were excited about?
I'm pretty excited about this one. I'll probably go Obama but I like both candidates some, which is of course not to say I think either is the Messiah. But I think this is a good election to be excited for. I mean, in 2000, the Democrats narrowed it to Gore and Bradley, and then promtply nominated the far less interesting candidate. And the Republicans narrowed in to McCain and W., and, ditto. It made me lose a lot of faith in the elctorate and how they make decisions really. This time round -- I mean, was there a candidate in either field that you were more interested in? Because me, I look at this thing and think, jeez, at least we picked the serious guys this time.
Which is a nice thought. I mean, it's unlikely any given President is going to get a whole lot of good done, but I feel like this election has had a lot of possibility to throw up interesting issues and discussion. OK, it might be failing in doing that -- but it might be as good as we get. That's exciting.
I have a question I should have asked on your slow news day: Why will you vote at all?
Voting in a national election is typically irrational for any individual, but particularly so when 1) you already know how D.C.'s 3 electoral votes will go, and 2) you already know you will, at times, regret your vote for either major party candidate.
Voting may be a great symbolic gesture of strong support for a candidate/party/idea, but that won't be the case for you in this election. And it may assuage some (irrational?) sense of civic duty obligation, but (correct me if I'm wrong), you don't seem like that type of person.
So, why vote?
MLaJ illustrates nicely how hard it can be to be patient. Some people just plain check out of the process.
(Btw, you might want to stop lumping the hard right with the moderate right.)
"Or, from what I can see in a lot of American conservative writing, it was the damned political opposition or overseas enemies or corruptors of the youth or some such again that kept all the good magical things from happening which otherwise would inevitably have happened."
This statement I'd have to take issue with. I don't think -any- conservative claims if a conservative policy things would naturally work out "right". For anyone to state that would imply that we're capable of running an ideal uptopian society, and we're not, which is a huge difference between conservatives and many of the socialist-like policies on the other side of the aisle.
The uptopian attempts to make things ideal through policy, not the conservative. The conservative recognizes that: kids will still get pregnant, people will still shoot each other, bad things will still happen with their policies, but instead fight the good fight.
Pick any issue... it's not like less taxation will suddenly make businesses care more for individuals and love their neighbors. But others would like more taxation so businesses are forced to pay for welfare programs, etc.
A conservative doesn't oppose condom distribution in schools because they think that's the only reason kids will have sex, without or without free condoms kids will still have sex -- but rather they think it facilitates behavior which should be discouraged among youth.
A conservative does not think that merely owning guns will 100% prevent the government from abusing rights, or on a smaller scale, with 100% prevent them from getting: robbed, killed, or injured. But they think gun ownership will at least allow the victim to protect themselves and potential save livees, rather than just being a victim of bad luck/wrong place wrong time.
A conservative doesn't oppose abortion because they think all lives will suddenly be cared for and if only that mother had a baby she'd be happier. Opposing abortion still means that sorrow, pain, suffering, etc is still present in the world. But accepting the consequences of ones actions and not destroying a life simply because it makes you unhappy, sad, inconvenient, poorer, etc is terrible and immoral trade off.
That being said, for myself most of the time, when I comment, I'm hashing out the issue in my head and putting my thoughts down for my own benefit, not necessarily the benefit of others. It's interesting to see how people think about an issue and filter that through my own process and come up with my response to it.
I can fully empathize with Megan's thinking:
A vote for McCain is a vote for four more years of ML&J's synaptic flatulence. :-)
If I were to post about how, in spite of the negative part of human rights, slavery may have been a more economically efficient system, I would not expect people to chin-strokingly entertain the thought.
Why not? Slavery might be more economically efficient, although I doubt it - the slaves are, to put it mildly, not highly motivated and overseers are essentially negative productivity.
Since your hypothetical rules out of the discussion the human rights part, it's not like you're actually proposing slavery. But if you were, the counter-argument is that economic concerns do not trump the human rights component.
Now, if I thought you were honestly advocating for slavery, I would believe you were a monster, and would have no interest in conversing with you. But that doesn't mean that your proposal couldn't be honestly argued down. If the proposal is so self-evidently bad then that should be trivial. If it can't trivially dismissed, then the proposal isn't self-evidently bad and I need to reexaminine my own thought.
Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post spent a day listening to political talk radio, watching the political shows and reading some blogs. He compares the political theater to that of sports talk radio, where my team rules, and your team sucks. (the Rules-Sucks paradigm)
I find it funny how the republicans elected the most dangerous man in the world in 2000, and coincidentally have somehow unearthed in 2008, someone even more dangerous in the form of McCain. When Rudy was looking like a frontrunner, Rolling Stone (I think) enshrined him with that same title.
On the democratic side, you have a guy in Obama who wants to keep capital gains at a rate that is lower than Reagan and Bush I had them, praises the deregulation movement and capitalism, yet gets called a socialist by conservatives.
Megan writes: "I voted for Bush in 2004, so my record isn't particularly inconsistent."
You owe the country an apology.
Paul Brinkley writes: "MLaJ illustrates nicely how hard it can be to be patient. Some people just plain check out of the process.
(Btw, you might want to stop lumping the hard right with the moderate right.)"
Why should I do that when the "moderate right" voted for Dumbya Bush en masse in 2004? It's not like there's much that's "moderate" about any segment of the right these days, anyway.
But yes, patience is gone after 7+ years of malign and incompetent rule.
A few posts ago:
You can do an incisive analysis, but this wasn't likely to to immanentize the eschaton . Further occurring during McCain's apparent rise in the polls is 'a slow news week.' To 'debate the issues in this election at a level above "My guy's awesome and your guy is a big fat doody-head" ' you might, like, offer some "issues."
Maybe I'm exceptionally hardened from coming from an argumentative family and having spent too long as a regular in a Rage Against the Machine NG back in the late 90s, but I don't understand the thin-skin of bloggers WRT their comments sections.
So there are jerks who would rather post some nasty put-down instead of reasoned debate? Who cares? It's not like you have to read the crap that people spew. And if you do, you don't have to take it seriously.
For me the blogger's contribution is only the first part of the experience of reading the blog. The comments are just as valuable, if only to see how other people react to the post itself. I find that often I learn as much, if not more, from commenters than I do from the bloggers. Maybe I'm a freak for that.
FWIW, I don't read blogs without comments sections. I see it as the blogger admitting that his ideas aren't able to withstand any outside scrutiny. I stopped reading Radley Balko years ago when he canned his comments because he didn't like the trolls. If he has comments now it's too late, I've moved on.
MarkG @ 1:02: Ha!
SG @ 1:08: In other words, slavery gets the gag reflex because it is so trivial to argue it down.
sam @ 1:02: To be fair - as well as to further illustrate the point I made at 12:33 - I have some liberal friends, who seem to sell the liberal viewpoint well. A lot of their thinking derives from the notion that everyone should share. And they're right in that respect; there are many people for whom a gift from a fellow human being is the thing that gets them up to face the day, to contribute, and in time, share their excess as well. In a world full of giving people, life is peaceful, creative, and happy. All incentives come in the form of carrots, and as the nation with the most carrots, we have both the obligation and the opportunity to use them to improve the world. (Walter Russell Meade would call this Wilsonianism.)
The conservative response to this is varied. Nearly all conservatives I know give charitably as well, and take offense to being regarded as selfish capitalists (widening the dialogue gap in the process). Some conservatives assert that sharing is noble, in fact; but only so long as it's voluntary. (This is one of the main intellectual motivations I perceive behind anti-communism and anti-socialism.) You can encourage collectivism through culture, not through law. Other conservatives embrace the cutthroat side of capitalism, on the premise that not everyone shares our morality, but they do share the human drive of greed. Still others bend toward what seems an Objectivist direction to me - that to share is to stunt the human will to push oneself to produce, and hence immoral. I sympathize to various extents with all these arguments.
DougEFresh @ 1:14: I think the people who call Obama socialist are looking at his voting record and the Ayers connection, not his capital gains policy or specific sound bites. I suppose it's worth wondering how to reconcile these.
MLaJ @ 1:39: Patience gone? Tough. The best you can hope for is a slap-down to the right in November, followed by a slap right back in 2010 or 2012 or later. Your ire at perceived wrongs doesn't entitle you to anything.
Paul Brinkley again: "Patience gone? Tough. The best you can hope for is a slap-down to the right in November, followed by a slap right back in 2010 or 2012 or later. Your ire at perceived wrongs doesn't entitle you to anything."
I'll decide what the best I can hope for is, chuckles. I don't feel "entitled" to anything - but if the past 7 years haven't disgusted you, I suggest that there's something deeply wrong with you.
MarkG writes: "A vote for McCain is a vote for four more years of ML&J's synaptic flatulence."
Or four more years of your lickspittle acquiescence.
Christina: well, I suppose there's some two-way street there. Some commenters will post nastiness just to watch the blog burn. I prefer to put on my best face, as if I might be remembered. Partially for one of your exact points: for the benefit of others wondering what other commenters think. I'd rather not have newcomers think the Internet is a cesspool, or at least, that there are a few people out there willing to roll up their sleeves, cut their hair, and help out.
If a blogger sees too much of the former, I can understand shutting down comments. I don't know whether that was the case with Radley Balko; maybe he just couldn't take the heat. To bring up another example, I know Michael Totten doesn't hesitate to ban commenters that are obviously trolling or starting the "gag reflex" issues (to paraphrase him: "'Genocide: Good or Bad?' is not a discussion I want to host on my forum"), and if it gets too dense, I've seen him turn the whole thing off for a few days.
He'd've probably banned someone like MLaJ months ago. With all that ad hominem, I don't see how anyone could take his comments seriously.
Why should I do that when the "moderate right" voted for Dumbya Bush en masse in 2004? It's not like there's much that's "moderate" about any segment of the right these days, anyway.
This is fair. Certainly moderates and independents who voted for Bush are just as responsible as the far right-wingers who voted for him.
Of course, my only quibble would be that I would characterize his presidency to be a failure to the extent that he has attempted to co-opt liberal positions and failed. I see the only conservative thing about Bush is his religious leanings. The rest of it: Medicare Part D, NCLB, the Iraq War, faith-based initiatives, managed trade, farm subsidies, the Katrina debacle, are all examples of excessive government intervention. He tried to pull a Clinton, but it didn't work. Because big-government policy prescriptions, even with Republican wrapping paper, are still duds.
Paul Brinkley harrumphs: "He'd've probably banned someone like MLaJ months ago. With all that ad hominem, I don't see how anyone could take his comments seriously."
Right, because it's "ad hominem" and "not serious" to refer to war criminals as Bushpigs and to question the morality of those who support them. And the proper response to an administration that has turned the US into a torture state is "patience."
Spare me the lecture. It really means nothing coming from someone who yaps about "the Ayers connection." You support murderers - Ayers is a far better man than Dick Cheney will ever dream of being. Yes, Ayers committed some extreme acts nearly 40 years ago, but none of them came close to murder.
Or call them racists.
Why does any discussion of racism always strike such a nerve with you, Rob? I never called you a racist. And contrary to your repeated assertions, I don't make accusations of racism often. I just do, sometimes, when I think that racism has occurred, and that seems to anger you well out of proportion to any individual instance. I'll say again: the commenters on this blog don't want to call any situation an instance of racism, ever, under any circumstances. So whose perspective is out of whack? Could it really be that in every individual instance where racism has been discussed in this forum, no racism has occurred? That just doesn't seem likely to me. And yet in every instance the large majority are sputtering and shouting and denying racism.
I've never called you a racist; I just refuse to act as though theres no such thing as racism in this world. Why are you so quick to assume that my refusal amounts to an attack on you?
Christina writes: "Of course, my only quibble would be that I would characterize his presidency to be a failure to the extent that he has attempted to co-opt liberal positions and failed. I see the only conservative thing about Bush is his religious leanings. The rest of it: Medicare Part D, NCLB, the Iraq War, faith-based initiatives, managed trade, farm subsidies, the Katrina debacle, are all examples of excessive government intervention. He tried to pull a Clinton, but it didn't work. Because big-government policy prescriptions, even with Republican wrapping paper, are still duds."
Oh, no, not the tired old "conservatism never fails" gambit!
Where were all of the "principled conservatives" who were up in arms over the "liberal" Dumbya in 2004? I'll tell you where they were - they were voting for him and cheering him on because THEY SAW HIM AS A CONSERVATIVE. And they saw him that way because that's what he is. They validated that with their votes. You are what you do, not what you claim you'll do. The notion that right-wingers these days favor "limited government" is a complete falsehood, because the right in this country is now in full-fledged authoritarian statist mode. THAT version of "conservatism" is what the right endorsed in 2004. Small-government voices are now marginalized - look to Ron Paul and Bob Barr, because those guys are about all that's left of that segment of the right.
Freddie says: "I'll say again: the commenters on this blog don't want to call any situation an instance of racism, ever, under any circumstances. So whose perspective is out of whack? Could it really be that in every individual instance where racism has been discussed in this forum, no racism has occurred? That just doesn't seem likely to me. And yet in every instance the large majority are sputtering and shouting and denying racism."
Right. Macaca Allen? Not a racist. Jesse Helms? A great patriot and not a racist. Strom Thurmond? Misunderstood. The "call me" ad that ran against Harold Ford? Just good clean blonde fun.
If McCain supporters burned a cross on Obama's lawn there would be people here claiming it wasn't racist, but it was just a positive statement about Christianity and alternative energy sources. And yes, I've used that joke before. Sue me.
Politics has become like religion, with people just clinging to their unexamined beliefs out of security. The truth is that most policies have been tried somewhere in the world and you can see the results if you care to look with an open mind.
But of course it's a lot easier to parrot a closely held belief than to read several studies on, for example, how effective government health care programs are, or how offshore drilling has affected the economy and the environment.
Freddie, read your first comment on this thread, and then explain to me how an accusation of trolling differs from an accusation of racism (other than being far less serious).
Both are ways to shut down debate without substantive engagement. Both may be justified or unjustified, depending on the circumstances. Neither really adds much; if somebody really is a racist (or a troll), you're not going to change his thinking by pointing it out. You didn't change SAM or Fred's thinking (but you did piss them off), and Paul hasn't gotten anywhere with MLaJ.
I just refuse to act as though theres no such thing as racism in this world.
Oh, I don't suggest you do that. There are real racists (or, if you prefer, real racist comments) on this site. I suggest you mock them for being wrong--preferably in a humorous way--instead of earnestly declaring that their racism violates some sort of grand laws of propriety and decorum.
Rob Lyman says: "There are real racists (or, if you prefer, real racist comments) on this site. I suggest you mock them for being wrong--preferably in a humorous way--instead of earnestly declaring that their racism violates some sort of grand laws of propriety and decorum."
There's room for both approaches. It's fun to mock Sailerites, but I never lose track of the fact that what they are and what they do is despicable. Is that okay with you?
Maybe I'm exceptionally hardened from coming from an argumentative family and having spent too long as a regular in a Rage Against the Machine NG back in the late 90s, but I don't understand the thin-skin of bloggers WRT their comments sections.
So there are jerks who would rather post some nasty put-down instead of reasoned debate? Who cares? It's not like you have to read the crap that people spew.
Actually, speaking of newsgroups, that's one thing Usenet newsgroups had (and have, though Usenet's current marginal status makes it less relevant for most users) over most web fora: the ability to use killfiles and scorefiles to filter out the jerks. It wasn't 100% effective by any means (since a poster you respected might wind up in a running fight with a troll, making it difficult to ignore). But it allowed individual users to carry on adult conversations with one another while filtering out the dross. (While allowing for the fact that one person's dross is another person's entertaining commentary, since a killfile only affects what the individual user chooses to see, rather than censoring a comment for anyone else.)
The one downside is that the new user sees it all, and may not have the patience to try to figure out who if anyone is worth reading. The public scoring system used by some sites would presumably help with that, in addition to providing feedback to the commenters themselves as to how their style is received by others.
I'm not really sure why most blogging sites haven't implemented something similar. Failing that, at least formatting comments so that the poster's name came first would offer the chance to blip over comments from the predictable rockthrowers.
Is that okay with you?
You need to ratchet up your humor quotient on the Sailerites, but hey, A for effort. It's more than I've been doing.
Freddie re: racist I think the problem with it is that it gets interjected in an argument to manipulate an agreement based on fear of being personally diminished rather than based on the ostensible arguments of the person who would cry 'racist'.
"I'm deciding which of two politicians to hand a lot of power I don't want either of them to have."
Pity that's too big for a bumper sticker.
Bob,
That bumper sticker already exists- "Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don't".
ML&J:
Have you considered that you are not accomplishing what you intend? That instead of convincing people that the country's on the wrong path, your spittle-flecked postings provide evidence that the opposition is irrational - implying that the country is on the right path (or at least that the alternative is nuts)? Is that your goal, to alienate the undecided middle? Did this approach work in 2004? Do you believe it will work in 2008?
Now, if your only goal is to vent your spleen, well that's different. In that case, all the more power to ya. But if you actually are trying to win friends and influence people, you might want to reconsider your tactics.
"I'm deciding which of two politicians to hand a lot of power I don't want either of them to have."
In that case the decision is easy. Which politician is going to be most checked by the other parts of government. Single party rule isn't a good thing for the country. This holds regardless of which party is ruling.
Mike S.: the closest things that come to mind to your filtering system are on slashdot.org and kuro5hin.org. Both tend to more technically-oriented audiences, for what it's worth. Slashdot uses mod points, a per-user score called karma, and a friend-foe system; kuro5hin uses something they call mojo. Both have faced problems, and have morphed over the years, as the admins themselves will tell you:
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/6/172738/261
Any blogging forum software writer would do well to take heed.
Even so, the drive to do something like this is obvious. I'd love to know whether a given commenter is considered respected on a given forum, or whether a forum actually possesses, say, two camps, each of whose members is lauded widely within that camp, and rarely without. (How much do people really like that Rob Lyman guy?)
So far, it seems as if the technical problems - security, system gaming, ease of use, etc. - have kept a killer app from surfacing.
SG writes: "Have you considered that you are not accomplishing what you intend? That instead of convincing people that the country's on the wrong path, your spittle-flecked postings provide evidence that the opposition is irrational - implying that the country is on the right path (or at least that the alternative is nuts)?"
Most of the country knows that things are on the wrong path. I think that at this point anyone who thinks Dumbya has been a success is basically unreachable - and truly not worth reaching.
And seriously - take your "spittle-flecked posting" garbage and Cheney yourself with it. Since the intellectual leader of the right is Rush Limbaugh you right-wingers simply have nothing to complain about when your own tactics are tossed back in your face.
"Is that your goal, to alienate the undecided middle? Did this approach work in 2004? Do you believe it will work in 2008?"
The notion this year is to exploit the righteous anger and disgust over the atrocity of the past 7 years, chuckles. This "undecided middle" you dream about is a whole lot smaller than you think.
As for what didn't work in 2004 - passivity didn't work. The Kerry campaign allowed too much bullshit to go unchallenged for far too long, and opposition to Repiglicans was far too muted given the extent of their depredations. Not this time, pal. Not this time.
(How much do people really like that Rob Lyman guy?)
Yeah, I'm curious too.
SG again: "Which politician is going to be most checked by the other parts of government. Single party rule isn't a good thing for the country. This holds regardless of which party is ruling."
Yeah, I heard a lot about that from conservatives when Dumbya went unchecked... Oh, wait, I didn't.
We can go back to divided government later. It often is a good idea. But not this year. The Repiglicans have earned themselves a vicious purging and I hope it hurts.
Besides, you still have the Supreme Court.
For now.
"I'm deciding which of two politicians to hand a lot of power I don't want either of them to have."
Pity that's too big for a bumper sticker.
SG: Yeah, I'm having trouble figuring him out, too. (I can't decide whether he's just spleen-venting, or this site is right next to dailykos in his bookmarks and he keeps misclicking, or what. I'll probably just stop taking him seriously again for a while.)
Meanwhile, your next argument is actually why I almost voted for Kerry in 2004: the Reps were in Congress, and part of me was concerned about some sort of social conservative takeover. I wondered whether Bush would run the war well, or at least well enough; I wondered whether the government would grow too precipitously in power; whether the media would see anything Kerry did in their "peace at all costs" narrative. (It's funny in a way - bile-spewing Kerry supporters went a long way toward driving me back to Bush.)
All in all, some things panned out, some things didn't. The government needs to lose a lot of weight, and the Reps obviously got too big for their britches, faithfully following one of Megan's laws of politics. Bush - or his administration - didn't understand how to work with the media at first, and so now we have a distorted view of the situation in Iraq - half the country thinks things are horrible, but sugarcoated, half thinks things are relatively good, but slandered. He did at least seem to want to make Iraq a better place for the right reasons, and General Petraeus is thankfully making a difference there, so I'll take that deal.
Paul Brinkley writes: "I almost voted for Kerry in 2004: the Reps were in Congress, and part of me was concerned about some sort of social conservative takeover. I wondered whether Bush would run the war well, or at least well enough; I wondered whether the government would grow too precipitously in power; whether the media would see anything Kerry did in their "peace at all costs" narrative."
Late in 2004 you were wondering whether Dumbya would run the war well? Seriously? Apart from the fact that the war was a damn stupid idea to begin with it was quite clear by that time that the war was being run with Dumbya's usual incompetence.
"He did at least seem to want to make Iraq a better place for the right reasons, and General Petraeus is thankfully making a difference there, so I'll take that deal."
Hilarious.
Hilarious.
Hey, thanks man. Please, tip your waiter. And do try the arugula; I love that stuff.
He did at least seem to want to make Iraq a better place for the right reasons, and General Petraeus is thankfully making a difference there, so I'll take that deal.
Remember when conservatives attacked Bill Clinton for nation building exercises? It just seems like everything being said now is "It's great if Republicans do it, but if Democrats do the same thing I hate it" Democrats do this to, but the point is we should try to change this.
I'm voting against incumbents in the local races, mainly because I feel they are all corrupted. I'm voting for Obama because I want to send a message to the Republicans that I want to see action on reducing government spending, not just saying you will and then raising it anyways.
As for what didn't work in 2004 - passivity didn't work. The Kerry campaign allowed too much bullshit to go unchallenged for far too long, and opposition to Repiglicans was far too muted given the extent of their depredations. Not this time, pal. Not this time.
And to amend this error in tactics, you are ... what exactly? What exactly are you doing besides posting nasty, sarcastic and hateful comments on Megan's blog and wherever else you troll, and deluding yourself that you accomplishing anything more than convincing readers you are unbalanced? If you think that this is helping dems in this election, then your obesssion with all things Bush is exceeded only by your obession with yourself. You're a troll Moe. Heck, even Wikepidia identified you as a troll -- now that's an accomplishment. Just be a troll Moe. You've found your niche. But good heavens, don't flatter yourself by thinking you are some kind of foot soldier in a righteous cause.
Flash forward -- Moe by the fireplace with little grandmoes and little grandlarry's. Grandmoe 1 asks, "Grandpa ML&J, what did you do in the great election of 2008?" Solemnly, ML&J replies, "I gave those bushpigs what for on Megan's blog. Yep, I sure showed them. They didn't know who they were dealing with. I slew them with my rapier wit and had them begging for quarter."
Moe mewls: "And seriously - take your 'spittle-flecked posting' garbage and Cheney yourself with it. Since the intellectual leader of the right is Rush Limbaugh you right-wingers simply have nothing to complain about when your own tactics are tossed back in your face."
Hee, hee, this is the mindset that makes it impossible for Moe to imagine that, for example, a Kerry/Obama voter who hates Dick Cheney might, say, pretend to be Moe in a blog comments section. He thinks people don't like him because of his politics, when they actually don't like him because he's a one-note boor.
I know you don't believe it, Moe, but we actually agree on most of the things you post about. I just don't like your attitude. But slobber away--I know you're enjoying yourself. Maybe you can get this comments section turned off, too!
I'm kinda with lampwick on this one--it's naive to assume that there's no connection to the quality of the content posted and the quality of the comments. It's also naive to assume that, during a hot election year and on a popular blog you're not going to have as many lucid discussions untampered by partisan fervor.
Rather, be thankful for the traffic and use it as motivation to up the ante on the quality of your content and discourse.
Also, comments are not the only source of discussion, and are hardly representative. Your writings can provide and spark discussion in other arenas. I'll forward a post of yours to a group of friends, we might chat about it over an evening, or you might receive thoughtful email from readers. To hem and haw about a comments section is to ignore the cancerous effect of anonymity on message boards.
Chill and keep on keepin' on.
I do not think that I am engaged in a titanic battle, in which the forces of good must beat back the cosmic evil that threatens to engulf us all. I think I'm deciding which of two politicians to hand a lot of power I don't want either of them to have.
Shouldn't that lead you to vote for McCain on the ground that president Obama (supported by majorities in both houses) will have more considerably more power than president McCain would (opposed by majorities in both houses).
As to the original topic of this thread, civility and substance are where one finds them. I think most of the comment threads here are worth at least a glance or I wouldn't spare them any time, as I no longer do the wearily predictable maunderings of Matt Y. and his commenter amen choir. Yes, one must step around a certain number of road apples, but we are reasonably fortunate here in having a hard core troll population that averages fairly close to one.
MLJ, our own Left-Wing Rage Boy, adds next to no substance, to be sure, and his civility index hovers around absolute zero, but his presence does at least serve the tonic function of making Freddie seem a veritable philosopher king by comparison. I still think Freddie is wrong about nearly everything, of course, but he actually has points to make.
MLJ is, in contrast, a scorpion. His stinger is the first, last and only resort. That's just his nature. Subract the ad hominem from an MLJ post and there is nothing left except perhaps the name of his current target.
you are aware that libertarianism and veganism are weird, marginalized stances, aren't you?
Can't speak for Megan, L-Dub, but I was certainly aware of this back in my misspent Libertarian youth. One of the things that eventually impelled me to move beyond doctrinaire libertarianism as a political philosophy was that more and more of its adherents seemed innocent of this obvious fact, appearing to prefer subscribing to the comforting notion that "most people basically agree with us, we just have to sell the ideas better." Not to put too fine a point on it, but no, they don't. Most Americans find "Capital L" Libertarianism seriously off-putting in important respects. I have come to agree with some of these objections while still rejecting others, but there is no question that, relative to American norms, libertarianism is a fringe philosophy. If one hasn't the guts to be forthrightly fringy, one should acquire ideas more in keeping with one's nature, not mask the cognitive dissonance with fantasy.
The same comforting illusion appears to be, if anything, even more firmly embraced on the fever-swamp Left. Our very own poster child for Bush Derangement Syndrome, MLJ, implicitly makes obeisance to this trope when he notes that, "Most of the country knows that things are on the wrong path." In recent decades, that poll question has tended to yield majorities regardless of who sits in the White House or the Speaker's chair. At any given point, the opposition to whomever is currently in power can be reliably counted upon to give the country's direction a thumbs-down, and to be joined by up to perhaps half - probably the more passionate half - of "Mr. In's" partisans who are annoyed he's dragging his feet getting his agenda enacted, compromising with the enemy, etc. Neither the question nor the result mean much. The notion that the tally for a specifics-free poll question indicates that nutroots-ian memes and agenda items are widely embraced is simply another in the wearyingly long list of aperceptions from which the American hard Left seems perpetually to suffer.
How much do people really like that Rob Lyman guy?
Hey, Rob, can't speak for anybody else, but you're okay by me.
Your guy is a big fat doody-head.
John Mc writes: "Flash forward -- Moe by the fireplace with little grandmoes and little grandlarry's. Grandmoe 1 asks, "Grandpa ML&J, what did you do in the great election of 2008?" Solemnly, ML&J replies, "I gave those bushpigs what for on Megan's blog. Yep, I sure showed them. They didn't know who they were dealing with. I slew them with my rapier wit and had them begging for quarter.""
I love this sort of stuff - a true genius like John Mc posting on a message board to complain that I'm posting on a message board. That's just beautiful.
And you should capitalize Bushpigs. It's the only respect they deserve.
A fake Moe says: "I know you don't believe it, Moe, but we actually agree on most of the things you post about. I just don't like your attitude. But slobber away--I know you're enjoying yourself. Maybe you can get this comments section turned off, too!"
And dickheads like this call ME a troll! Amazing.
The Douthat comments died for a variety of reasons, but I think the most important one is that Ross never gave a damn about them - they just got in the way of his primary purpose, which was serving the GOP in the most supine ways possible.
And, uh, Fake Moe? Why not try expressing your own opinions in your own fashion and stop worrying about what I do. I can assure you that your opinions about my posting style won't change it in the slightest.
I love this sort of stuff - a true genius like John Mc posting on a message board to complain that I'm posting on a message board. That's just beautiful.
I'm not complaining Moe. I'm just mocking you for actually believing your own hype.
The notion this year is to exploit the righteous anger and disgust over the atrocity of the past 7 years
How, exactly are you "exploiting" this? You spend half your life making anonymous comments here or Kos or Huffington Post, where no one pays attention to you there either except for comic relief. Even Wikipedia told you to grow up. And yet you think you're engaged in some righteous struggle. You're like a Doonesbury character.
Part 2 of Future Moe by the Fireplace. Little Moe asks, "Grampy Moe, with all the posting you did on blogs, did you actually, you know, talk to anyone, like a real conversation? Grampy? Grampy where are you going?"
John Mc writes: "I'm just mocking you for actually believing your own hype."
Believing my own hype? You silly little Repiglican stooge, don't you see that what I am doing here is truly beautiful?
Never mind, soon you will all look upon my authentic rage and despair.
Making inane comments here, and being parodied by equally stupid people, is what I live for. It's who I am. I am the personification of the concept of "reductio ad absurdum".
Bushpig, Fascist, Repiglicans are Nazis.
Don't you see how easy it is? On the internet I say all these things, in a cacophonous chorus of the inane, and perhaps the insane. So can my somewhat less imaginative impersonators. I cannot leave or change, nor can they. We simply ARE.
Won't you join in my righteous struggle? Won't you stay for the symphony?
I am certainly not inane. I don't know why anyone would think that from my comments.
The MLaJ impersonation really should stop. Love him or hate him, you shouldn't pretend to be him.
That's well and truly out of bounds.
Making inane comments here, and being parodied by equally stupid people, is what I live for. It's who I am. I am the personification of the concept of "reductio ad absurdum".
In other words, you're a troll. I'm glad you cleared that up for me.
Ignore the impostors, they are Bushpig sympathizers. You can recongnize the real me by my rapier-like wit and by the authenticity of my hatred.
All of you so-called moderates are missing the point. The only trolls are the trolls who have been in power the past 7 years. I know sometimes I talk as though posting on these forums doesn't mean everything to me, but really, it means everything to me, and if it doesn't mean everything to you, then you are part of the problem.
People who ridicule me as being insane or stupid miss the point. Everything about my rage is genuine, unlike these sniveling Bushpigs who impersonate me. People may get upset at my hatred, but my hate is a pure, righteous hate, which sizzles with the authenticity of a scorned woman. Mock me if you must, but know that you are only revealing your own insipidness.
Am I so wrong to be outrageously outraged? Think about it. And remember, IF YOU ARE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION!!!!
You will notice I put four exclamation points there. Some might call that excessive, but I say the only excess was when the Bushpigs waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we stood by and allowed it to happen.
Rob Lyman says: "That's well and truly out of bounds."
Love me or hate me, I have always stayed in bounds as far as discourse is concerned.
John, my guess would be that the last authentic MLaJ comment was 6:55, and the others are fakes. Obviously, I can't prove anything.
All of you Repiglicans impersonating me are just giving me the attention I want. Do you really want to engage someone who's most intelligent insult is to call Bush "Dumbya"?
Can't you Fascist warmongering McSame-voting Bushpig-supporting Crypto-Nazis find something better to do with your time?
In case I didn't mention it before, Repiglican.
...
...
Oh I did mention it before. Well, perhaps if I leave that second use of the word in, people will understand that I am a tough cookie (that's what my mom always calls me) and that I am not to be trifled with.
I like how the 8:20 impostor chides the others for wasting their time, while he does the same thing. Really, the internet deserves a better class of trolls, and I'm gonna give it to them.
Rob,
I agree the 6:55 one seemed legit, though I think the 7:35 one I responded to was as well.
That we are having a discussion over who the real Moe is leaves me feeling in need of shower.
John Mc writes: "You spend half your life making anonymous comments here or Kos or Huffington Post, where no one pays attention to you there either except for comic relief."
It's nice to have a hopeless moron like you stalking me, Johnny, but the fact is that I've only posted on Kos a dozen times or so, and I haven't posted on the Huffington Post in a long time. I think their comments section is a terribly disorganized shambles.
Maybe you should pay more attention to your own posts and less to mine, because you make fewer cogent points than Elizabeth Hasselbeck does.
Pay attention Repiglican impostors, the 8:46 post was the real me. You need to throw in a random pop culture reference every now and then. And Lyman is only half right, since the 6:55 post was fake as well. Am I the only one who knows how to play this game?
Rob Lyman says: "John, my guess would be that the last authentic MLaJ comment was 6:55, and the others are fakes. Obviously, I can't prove anything."
You're perceptive for a conservative, Rob. 6:55 was mine. The rest are fakes up until 8:46, which is also mine.
I can see why people who voted for Dumbya might want to deflect attention away from the complete disaster our Asshole-In-Chief has brought upon this country, and I suppose these impersonations are one way of doing that in a forum like this. It went on at Douthat's blog for months on end. Doesn't faze me a bit - it's a tribute.
As for John Mc, he should probably go back to his other hobby, which is answering ads for cheap Viagra. He's almost as bad at posting as John McCain was at flying.
Ok this is really weird. I have been posting under the name MoeLarryAndJesus for years now. I tend to read a lot of blogs, all over the political spectrum. I have never been anything other than respectful to my political opponents, and would never use terms like Bushpig or Reichwing to describe them. (I myself am proudly on the center left, and will probably vote for Obama this time, though I admit McCain is tempting me to consider him as well. The truth is, I kind of wish we could have both of them in charge.)
When I look at the comments here, I realize that there are a bunch of other people posting with the same name. Why is that? It seems like some of you are making fun of the other ones, but its a little bit hard to tell who is who.
I'm just curious, what exactly should we do about this situation? It seems somewhat chaotic, and some of the other MoeLarryAndJesuses are saying things that I don't agree with. I'd rather not give up my screen-name, since I believe I had it first. Any other suggestions would be helpful.
Fake Moe 9:09's approach is funny. I haven't seen that one before. I've never used "Reichwing." But I certainly have no respect left for Bushpigs - it would be nice if on 1-20-09 they all shave their own heads and march down the main streets of their towns in an act of repentance akin to that of French women who slept with German occupiers during WW2.
Yes, a march through town with shaved heads. That'll show those Nazis!
DDP doesn't get it: "Yes, a march through town with shaved heads. That'll show those Nazis!"
The Nazis were defeated and gone at that point, chuckles. But you have a point, I'm being overly kind. They should also be pelted with rocks and garbage.
Oh, I got it.
You didn't.
DDP again: "Oh, I got it.
You didn't."
Oh, sure I did. It's just that there wasn't much to get. But I'm sure your mom would still be proud that you tried your best.
Did you know John McCain was a POW?
Re: All incentives come in the form of carrots
Liberals have no trouble making laws which have some enforcement sticks attached.
Re: I think the people who call Obama socialist are looking at his voting record
How many companies has Obama voted to nationalize? Socialism is a system whereby the government owns the means of production. The word is much abused of course (ditto for "fascism" and "fundmanetalism")
Re: The best you can hope for is a slap-down to the right in November, followed by a slap right back in 2010 or 2012 or later.
Whoever wins the presidency, the Democrats are almost certain to make major gains in Congress this year (4+ in the Senate, 10+ in the House). If McCain wins then they will probably make at least some small additional gains in 2010. If Obama wins the GOP will probably make small gains (but not take back either chamber) in 2010. Beyond that, 2012 will very much depend on what happens in the next four years.
Re: He did at least seem to want to make Iraq a better place for the right reasons
Oh, good grief! Iraq was about planting an American client state (with full basing rights), one more reliable and less incendiary than Saudi Arabia, in a key location in the Middle East. Also, about removing a notorious troublemaker, as much for the good of Israel as our own, and about trying out some untested political theories at the point of a gun. If you think that the US went into Iraq on humanitarian grounds, then I'd love to have some of what you are smoking.
@ Megan - you are not going to 'immanetize the eschaton' because you are voting for the most liberal politician in the country.
Politics has degenerated into a sorry spectacle with teams forming up based almost entirely on the R or D after a candidates name. The vocal supporter only care about the R and D after the name, not the actual policies.
Examples of this include obama supporters continuing to enthusiastically support obama after he voted for the fisa bill. Before that vote most obama supporters considered anyone who supported the fisa bill to be constitution shredding, human rights abusing, cretins.
Many of those supporters made a prompt 180 and said the fisa bill was not that big a deal after obama voted for it.
Of course the republicans have the same issues with bush and his medicare drug plan, patriot act, and disgusting laundry list of increases in government size and power.
Many republicans who strenuously opposed elements of the patriot act when clinton proposed them (the know your customer banking regulation parts) stampeded over each other to vote for and support it when bush proposed it as part of the patriot act.
Regarding the nature of the partisan comment threads on this site a little pruning would do a lot to elevate the discourse.
For example, this thread has about 100 comments so far, with about 30 of them from moelarry and those spoofing him. That number does not count the replies directed to moelarry.
In other words thirty to fifty percent of the comments on this thread revolve around moelarry.
Few if any of those comment add anything substantive to the debate,
is a representative sample of much of moelarry's output..
One poster like that drags down the thread and the associated screeching tends to drown out any substantive discussion of the issue that may be happening in the comments.
TJIT quotes and says: " Right, because it's "ad hominem" and "not serious" to refer to war criminals as Bushpigs and to question the morality of those who support them.
is a representative sample of much of moelarry's output.
.
One poster like that drags down the thread and the associated screeching tends to drown out any substantive discussion of the issue that may be happening in the comments."
There's substance in that comment, chuckles, which you choose not to discuss. And I notice that this post of yours contributes nothing of substance to the "discussion" of the "issue," whatever that might be.
What a shock.
Levy Mwanawasa died
ML&J is the most obvious type of troll: he considers his political opponents not merely wrong but evil. So why does he hang out at a libertarian weblog, rather than at Kos (with the other folks who think "Dumbya" represents the ultimate clever riposte)? Because he's a troll: he likes to attack and insult, hoping to make people angry. It gives him something to do. Sad, really.
You're just like the rest of the Bushpigs, chuckles. Don't you dare criticize me! Bushitler ruined the world! haliburton! Plastic turkey! Arggghh!
Did you know John McCain was a POW?
RMc writes: "ML&J is the most obvious type of troll: he considers his political opponents not merely wrong but evil. "
This is untrue. I most definitely do not consider anyone who disagrees with me politically to be evil. But Dumbya and Dick Cheney - yes, I consider them to be evil, very much so. I consider both of them to be on the same moral level as Osama bin Laden.
If you - or anyone else - defends the Bushpig use of torture AND still insists that the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do then I suppose it's possible that you're not evil. But you would then be, at the very least, morally deranged.
ML&J, thanks for sticking to your guns -- Bush and Cheney should be both impeached and prosecuted for war crimes. I suspect history books of the future will mark this time as the end of conservative philosophy. Why? Becuase of the the excesses of the Bush/Cheney administration and the conservative movement's failure to hold itself accountable.
I grew up in a Republican household, my great-great-great uncle was Hannibal Hamlin's (Lincoln's first VP) secretary. And I am horrified by the lack of morals the Republican party displays today. The Bush administration lied to the nation to start a war. They spied on us. They twisted government. The list of wrongs goes on and on. Why is it that conservatives who claim a creed of responsibility have failed to accept responsibility? To take remedial action?
So attack liberals, DailyKos, the multiple personalities of Moe,larryAndJesus. I rejoice that the 50% of voters who haven't been represented for the last seven years continue to speak out; despite the insults hurled at them by conservatives every day. Continue to bluster like a Bush. It's just more of the new conservative creed: It's not what you do that counts, it's not getting caught that counts. Mark Folley could prey on pages, so long as he didn't get caught. Ted Stevens could let an army of builders finance his home, as long as he didn't get caught. Rendition and torture are okay, as long as you don't get caught. Any law Congress passes is okay to sign, as long as nobody bothers to read the signing statement that guts it. The list goes on and on and on.
Well, Bush & Cheney & Company got caught. They lied us into a war. They tortured. They spied on US citizens. They stuffed the justice department with political dimwits. And on and on.
Why won't you conservatives hold them accountable? Is is better to "not get caught" then to admit conservative philosophy has been twisted beyond recognition?
zic writes: "I grew up in a Republican household, my great-great-great uncle was Hannibal Hamlin's (Lincoln's first VP) secretary. And I am horrified by the lack of morals the Republican party displays today. The Bush administration lied to the nation to start a war. They spied on us. They twisted government. The list of wrongs goes on and on. Why is it that conservatives who claim a creed of responsibility have failed to accept responsibility? To take remedial action?"
It's because conservatism in America has mutated - it has moved to the right and is now authoritarian statism. It worships power and power for its own sake.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, but he did so reluctantly in the midst of a great crisis. Dumbya suspended habeas corpus for what is, relative to the Civil War, a fart in a windstorm. And conservative voices protesting this are few and far between. Of course most right-wingers are so poorly educated that they don't know what habeas corpus is, but that's another matter.
"They stuffed the justice department with political dimwits."
I hope it's possible to get rid of the morons that shithead Monica Goodling hired. What a disgrace she is.
"Why won't you conservatives hold them accountable?"
Because they're busy trying to get a vicious warmongering geezer elected who would just be Dumbya on steroids. McCain's a guy who's never seen a war he didn't like. And there's nothing authoritarian statists like more than the promise of more wars.
Megan,
Modest proposal: Make commenters log in before posting a comment. Then give each person only 3 (or choose a different number) of comments per original post.
Of course, the site's blogging software would need to support this feature. But once the account name feature is there the limitation on the number of comments and even the total number of letters of comments per person is not a hard thing to code up.
You could even grant higher limits to very high quality posters.
I ought to ask the MovableType people to add this feature.
MoeLarryAndJesus,
You really need to be filtered out. You personify the sort of person that Megan is (correctly) complaining about.
Randy Parker harrumphs: "MoeLarryAndJesus,
You really need to be filtered out. You personify the sort of person that Megan is (correctly) complaining about."
You really need to get a better hobby. Being a hall monitor is really a shabby pursuit.
And the 3 post maximum is a shockingly stupid idea that would neuter the comments section of any blog. But I understand that some people prefer blandness in everything. And looking at your remarkably bland blogs I see that you link to both Steve Sailer and VDare, so I see that vanilla is your favorite, uh, color. Or flavor.
I agree things are too hostile and yet...
Even though the Feist thing was cute it was a pointed political ad in its way. It seems a bit naive to expect that that thread would have mostly been "oh that's cute, I like Feist." Or people happily yucking it up.
If someone a month ago showed clips of Obama with Jeremiah Wright and played "Son of a Preacher Man" over it I doubt anyone would focus on how they like Dusty Springfield or that Obama's jacket looked very nice.
TR writes: "Even though the Feist thing was cute it was a pointed political ad in its way. It seems a bit naive to expect that that thread would have mostly been "oh that's cute, I like Feist." Or people happily yucking it up."
While TR and I are miles apart politically, he's a thoughtful guy who makes some good observations. This is one of them.
This is an extremely contentious election in a country that's at a low ebb in many ways. we're winding down on a disastrous presidency and a huge majority of us think the country is going downhill fast. Expecting tee-hees and corpse-like demeanors at this time is naive.
I'm disgusted by what the Bushpigs have done to this country. I will continue to express that disgust as clearly as possible until they're gone.
1-20-09!
I do not believe that my vote is going to immanentize the eschaton.
Of course you don't. It's obvious that you are not a Discordian, but probably a member of the Gnomes of Zurich. I'd also say the Bavarian Illuminati are a possiblity. The UFOs, Servants of Cthulhu, and Bermuda Triangle are low probability. Fnord.
"I do not believe that my vote is going to immanentize the eschaton."
You did your part to accomplish that in 2004, when you actually voted for Bush despite clear evidence that he was incompetent AND a war criminal. Keeping a tapeworm like that in office tends to have negative effects on the public mood.
I voted for Bush in 2004, so my record isn't particularly inconsistent
Sorry. I guess I missed that.
Megan, I don't comment often, but one reason I followed you to the Atlantic from your personal blog was because most of the comments to your posts were well-written and thoughtful, whether or not I agreed with them. Unfortunately the level of trolling has gone up since you joined the Atlantic, but there are still a number of thoughtful responses from both sides of the aisle often enough to keep me reading the comments.
I do agree with lampwick's comment about the comments reflecting the post. Shorter posts that have an observation rather than an argument invite readers to respond in whatever way makes sense to them. That can be a good thing, but it's not surprising if it leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding of your motives or of someone else's response.
As for the consistent trolls, I'm of two minds. A few people seem to post only abuse, and it really hurts the level of discourse. On the other hand, I like the fact that dissent has a place here, and banning a few might discourage others from disagreeing.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I definitely share your frustration. Election years always bring out the worst aspects of partisanship.