Some Thoughts:

...on politics, weblogs, and the abandonment of thought and simple civility

David at ISOU has a concern that I share:

Yesterday I read a blog where a young conservative was basically celebrating our abuses of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, justifying them in the name of being tough on terrorism. When did we become a nation that emulated our worst enemies? When did we become a nation driven by fear and a need for revenge, rather than one of laws and justice? When did we become a nation that excuses evil in the name of self protection and self righteousness… Maybe it happened a long time ago, and we just didn’t notice.

I could go on and on and on and on. But the message is essentially the same: Much of the shit going around today is just that: shit put out by assholes who don't have anything better to do with their time than rub excrement in the face of the body politic. (Don't thank me for the imagery. Thank Team America.)

Now, presented with that shit served up on a plate, you've got two choices. You can either eat that shit, or you can send it back and find a better meal. This political season, with its hatred, the polarization, the shouting heads, the threats, and the fearmongering, consists largely of people serving up shit and calling it steak. Don't you deserve better?

How do you stay optimistic when you want to tell people who you have come to respect through reading their weblogs that they are hypocrites? These are people on all sides of the political spectrum, people who pounce on every instance of misbehavior by their political opponents with loud cries of denunciation and saying "We're better than they are, see!?!" However, the silence is deafening when occasion arises for an equally loud condemnation of bad behavior by their side. Some lip-service is given to the thought that bad behavior on all sides needs to be condemned, but the outrage is selective, the offenses of allies are not actively sought out and when blatantly obvious are minimized, and the bad actions of opponents are written about with prose that is too purple even for a pulp novel. There are indeed some bloggers who have called their own on bad behavior, but the number of those bloggers is very small, and the number who condemn their own with the same vehemence as they use against their opponents is even smaller. As I have stated repeatedly, bad behavior can ONLY be policed and corrected by those on the same side, and it needs to be more than mere lip-service, because in our current climate all other voices are ignored or shouted down. Sadly, I see no one jumping OFF of the bandwagon of vilifying their opponents to take the time to curb their own rabid dogs. (Yes, John, I stole your metaphor)

I no longer give a damn what anyone has to say about how the candidate they oppose is "insensitive" or "inconsistent" or "lying" because all the overwrought accusations have lost any semblance of credibility with me. I'm tired of all the shouting with no consideration that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE is correct 100% of the time. This means the left-wing is not always wrong or always right, this means the right-wing is not always wrong or always right. For every instance of insensitivity by either candidate, you can pull an instance of equal insensitivity by the other candidate. For every instance of inconsistency by one candidate, you can find an instance of equal inconsistency by the other candidate. For every instance of misrepresentation of their opponent by one candidate, you can find an instance of equal misrepresentation of their opponent by the other candidate. Anyone who has the temerity to point this out is shouted down by the ditto-heads in the comment section, assuming they don't start getting threatening email from those same ditto-heads or the even more despicable moonbats and nutjobs who are so loud despite supposedly being so few in number. We have gotten to the point to where the tyranny of emotion makes it impossible to actually admit that ANYONE who doesn't toe the party line with precision and repeat verbatim the current talking points might actually have something important to say that could help solve some of our problems.

Perhaps I am just tired and down because of my approaching milestone birthday. Perhaps I am just feeling disconnected because I am watching all of this take place from a foreign country that is all the more strange because it is familiar yet different. Pennywit has put into a short list what I have been asking of other bloggers for months. I hope he has more success than I did in persuading people to take off their blinders, change the lenses through which they view the world, even if only for a moment, and actually consider that people who don't agree with them are still people, human beings who deserve a fundamental level of respect and merit at the very least a listen. So yes, I am not optimistic, because I do see my country going to Hell, without even the benefit of being in a handbasket.