Posted on 05/16/2006 11:06:53 AM PDT by catholicfreeper
Oh, boy. What did I write, just yesterday?
The fascist is whoever is trying to shut you up, shut you down, dis-employ you, silence you, cripple you or marginalize you for the crime of daring to fall out of step with the party and the conventional wisdom. Beware of them.
I also paraphrased St. Paul, who wrote, “all that I hate I am become…”
It seems that “all that some conservatives hate they are becoming…” thanks to the spitting emotionalism that has attended the issue of immigration for the past month or so. The issue, of couse, has been growing for 30 years, but now some want their solutions applied right now, this very instant, and you’d better not disagree, or you will be dismissed, de-linked or otherwise cast-aside.
I think some conservative bloggers, having felt victorious thanks to the Harriet Miers Debacle and the DPW Dissent are feeling raw-unto-hysteria because President Bush - who has given them almost everything a man can be expected to deliver as president, dared last night to NOT capitulate to their demands. Oh. My. They figured he’d blink and roll for them, again. After all, they KNOW so much better than he.
So now, we’re looking at this disagreeable meltdown over at Polipundit, which some of us saw coming last night. Lorie Byrd has published a farewell and suggested she and the other “guest bloggers” at Polipundit have been told their dissent from Polipundit’s hardline will not be tolerated.
I am not comfortable writing about this, because my policy has always been not to comment on other blogs except in positive ways - that every blogger should be entitled to say what they want and left to their own work. It is only because I believe the meltdown over there is a kind of living metaphor for what is happening to conservatives in general that I dare to break my own rule, but it’s making me cringe to do so.
Poli wrote: Suppose three out of four columnists at the Old York Times were pro-Republican. You can bet publisher “Pinch” Sulzberger would do something about that right quick.
Perhaps…but that’s why we characterize Pinch as a narrow-minded pill and a BARRIER to the free exchange of information and ideas. We’re supposed to be better than that. We, meaning bloggers. We, meaning “conservatives.” (If that is even what I should call myself, anymore…)
I suspect that emotions and the late hour were taking tolls on all parties concerned. Polipundit owns his site and is certainly entitled to propel it in the direction he wishes, but in making this move he’s losing some high-ground - he had bragging rights to a place that could claim a willingness to entertain differing viewpoints - a rarity in the blogosphere.
Note that my quote above on “the fascist” is not meant directly or personally toward Polipundit, whom I do not know, although I seem to recall someone sending me some criticism he made of me during the DPW or Miers thing. I can’t remember, because it didn’t matter. He was, as I say, entitled to his thoughts. I am sure he is no fascist. But…I must admit to feeling a chill to see him essentially tell his co-horts that they must either shut up on this issue, or agree with him, or leave.
Should Lorie Byrd have quoted Poli? That’s debatable. Possibly she should have slept on it and kept the conversation internal, but it sounds like emotionalism had its way with everyone yesterday. I hope the gang over at Poli can work it out, but…it seems unlikely. If Polipundit successfully cracks down on free expression in one area it will inevitably lead to cracking down on free expression in other areas, and so even if he and his “guests” (who worked very hard and helped BUILD the site into the success it is) could manage to work things out, I doubt the endeavor could continue successfully with its foundation so cracked. Sadly, without those differing viewpoints, though, the site will become just one more place you can go to see George Bush called “Jorge Arbusto.”
Don’t kid yourself, this is a microcosm of what is happening on the right. And “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I see in the Poli comments section that some are saying they will “de-link” Polipundit or take him off their blogrolls. While I have de-linked bloggers whom I found I simply didn’t read very often, I’ve never taken someone off the blogroll for spite. I recall being tempted, once, when a conservative blogger felt the need to use the occasion of the death of John Paul II to toss out some ignorant, misinformed (and arrogant) “Christian” blather about Catholicism, but that temptation passed. I happen to actually think that threatening “de-linkage” is the amusing tactic of the impotent (I understand I’ve been “de-linked” here and there, tee-hee). It’s sort of like Tony Soprano saying “he’s dead to me…” and then mousing and clicking someone into oblivion. In a virtual world, I guess that’s power.
The virtual world is partly to blame, I think, for the high notes of recrimination and verbal violence we’re seeing lately. One huge drawback to the internet, and to blogging, is that one can completely insulate oneself from the real world. One can find a forum catering to one’s interest and all-but live there, talking back and forth with like-minded folks about anything from fly-balls to fly-fishing, from insurance to incest. While the internet has a capability of enlarging, the truth is most people surfing the blogs and sites find the ones they like and linger there, in the echo chambers of a few favorite spots, and thus they shrink their worlds. They begin to believe the illusion that because 80 or 800 or 8,000 people frequent the same site and jaw the same sentiments, that there are a whole lot more people agreeing than disagreeing with them. That, in fact, a breathtaking number of people - MOST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, even - believe what they believe.
This is a very powerful illusion, and an empowering one, too. A fly-fisher may become convinced that his sport should be included in the Olympics; a pervert might come to believe he is normal - that the rest of the world is simply less honest than he, and proceed forward with his worst fantasies.
I think something like that is happening with the blogs. It is so easy to sit at one’s desk and pound out a screed, like Nikita pounding his shoe, and get some favorable feedback which leaves one feeling both both validated and important. Or, you don’t even have to be a blogger, you can be a member of a forum, accustomed to daily exposition of your views with accompanying “hear, hears!” It’s heady, seductive stuff. If all these people are telling you how great you are, how smart you are, how RIGHT you are, well…then it follows, that you must be great, smart and right, and why shouldn’t the president listen to you?
Mr. President, I have a BLOG and I’m not afraid to use it! I have a FOLLOWING! I have INFLUENCE! I’m an important person, dammit, I AM GOOD!
I don’t have your education, I don’t have access to knowing what you know, but none of that matters, Mr. President, I am a blogger, and I demand your ear, your respect and your fealty, your obedience. I AM YOUR BASE and you’d damn well better bow!
The thing is, and I’m being serious, here…that sort of ongoing harangue, completely devoid of respect, of a willingness to take half-a-loaf and call it a win…that’s the stuff that could in the end WEAKEN the influence of the blogs. Stomp your feet and find any solution but yours to be insufficient, and eventually you look like a crank, and people stop paying attention.
Imagine being President of the US, dealing with the world as it is, right now, and having to hear that every pissant little writer with a blog is demanding THIS sort of action or THAT sort of solution and threatening to…I don’t know, hold the breath or lead his or her “loyal readers” into open revolt. Imagine being president and having to hear from an advisor that one-issue people, with one-issue perspectives are demanding a perfect (and probably undoable) action on their one-issue, or they’ll toss you overboard, because the other thousand things you got right no longer matter. That they’ll commit electoral suicide rather than accept a compromise.
Imagine hearing that and then looking at your map of the world, your intelligence reports, your CIA imploding with rogue agents, your troops all-but-forgotten by most Americans, your roaring economy being yawned at, your most effective tools to keep the nation secure being leaked and rendered ineffective, your congressional majority utterly lacking in cojones, the media moving toward mendacity, etc, etc, etc.
Imagine thinking of all of that, and then having to worry about the roar coming from the blogosphere - not from a writer having a one-time temper-tantrum and venting (I’ve certainly been known to do that, as have most of us) but by bloggers who have determined that they are not mere commenters and information gatherers/relators, but in-the-game movers and shakers, more tuned-in to the realities of any problem than the President could ever be, more morally upright, more patriotic, more extensively knowledgable, more…well, more caring, dammit! And more loyal to America, too! Just ask their readers!
If I were president, I’d stop caring what everyone was saying, too, after a while, and just try to do the best I could by my own lights, and hope things work out the best for the whole nation. Not just for the foot-stompers.
Undoubtedly, I will be denounced by more conservatives and a few bloggers for daring to suggest it, but I am a blogger, so I know whereof I speak: the seductive tones of the echo chambers and the Amen Chorus can skewer perspective and (if one is not cautious) overinflate the ego. We are all susceptible to it; to deny that is to be fully in the ego’s grip.
I just hope that the blogosphere, and all the millions of folks traveling within it, blogging or commenting, can keep all those egos in check…I fear it cannot. And if it cannot, what a blog-quake we’re in for. And will the nation feel it? Will the next congress or the next president do something to stop the blogs? It’s not like they haven’t already been discussing it. Not this president, mind you, but several waiting in the wings have already danced around the issue.
“Let me keep to simplicity,” said (the newly elected) Abbess Catherine. Only that could balance this terrifying power. - Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede
Oh, and Jim Geraghty has some suggestions on how the GOP and conservatives can prevent their own electoral/political deaths in the upcoming elections. A good piece you should read.
More on the Polimeltdown here
Related: The Immigration Speech I’m off on politics for a while Extremist ideologies, insane ends
This is a very powerful illusion, and an empowering one, too. A fly-fisher may become convinced that his sport should be included in the Olympics; a pervert might come to believe he is normal - that the rest of the world is simply less honest than he, and proceed forward with his worst fantasies.
So true. Especially in the internet age. On a side note I hope the stuff at polipundit works out. At times I wish the Anchoress was not an Anchoress so she could get on TV and radio.
Perfect.
Based on what has been done in the past to address the illegal immigration issue, there is no reason to think that what was proposed last night will be any more successful.
It is a complicated scheme for a relatively simple problem: How to keep illegal people out of out of the country - people crossing over from Mexico.
Ahh, those open minded folks at Polipundit...
CNN Poll [John Podhoretz]
David Frum, the smartest man I know, got it wrong. CNN has a poll just up, and the results are staggeringly in the president's favor. 79 percent of those who watched had a very favorable or favorable view of the speech, and those who support the president's policies rose in number from 42 to 67 percent.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
You know I can understand your viewpoint. Its pretty frustrating. But to be honest I think times have changed. Illegal immigration has had it ups and downs as a political issue. However, I have never seen a time where there is a national consensus to do something about it. I think this time it might work. If the President gets what he wants it want magically solve the problem. But I think its a good foundation
Agree completely.
Related...
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2006/05/illegal-immigrationthe-rights-roe.html
This is probably the truest sentiment I've read in the last couple of days on this issue:
"Trying to round up 12,000,000 people and deporting them en mass would be a logistical nightmare. Even if it could be done, it would be a public releations nightmare. Can't you just picture the news reports night after night showing immigrations agents ripping children from their beds whisking them off in the night as they beg for their parents. It would be Elian Gonzales x 12,000,000, not a pretty sight. It would diminish us as a nation unlike anything we have ever done."
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2006/05/illegal-immigrationthe-rights-roe.html
I agree with that. It is fine to disagree and espouse your point of view but to be disrespectful and vitriolic only makes a person or group irrelevant.
A favored self-indulgence has become unfortunately more common since the advent of the blog: The Open Letter.
(Some pissant blogger:) "An open letter to George W Bush."
"Free Republic has become nothing more than a hysterial right caricature of the DU."
Sad, but true.
Well, you know, all Americans are supposed to be optimistic. So I will join you in hoping that this time something will get underway that'll make a difference.
Ouch nice link but its true in many regards. As a lurker for years on this site his comments were interesting. However it doesnt have to be that way.
How right you are.
Open letter to bloggers.
"Dear bloggers,
Interblog slap-fights are boring. You're not that important.
Signed,
- Tarantulas"
Oh but the new line is this haven you heard. We are not going to deport people just starve them into submission by cutting off all employment. I know people might think thats a winning PR line but its just as problematic. ONe it want work. Two, as I have said repeatly we have to stop looking at this as this just jose mowing some yards. Many of these illegals have American kids and spouses. They have house notes for goodness sakes and kids in college. I had no idea you could get a house note and be illegal. Nethertheless, that would be a pr and moral disaster if that took place also.
I know how the following will read, but it's not meant to sound insensitive:
I have worked with the homeless and believe me, it is very difficult to starve in this country. So I don't think it's about "starving 'em out". I DO think employers should be penalized for illegal hiring practices.
The Anchoress is a very thoughtful, insightful person. She also used to post at Lucianne's forum. She organized a 24 hour prayer chain of Ldotters during the 2004 elections.
Well yes I mean the employer side of the equation is what we need to look at. In reality a guest worker program doesnt make sense if Employers can go around it.
Wow I didnt realize that. I used to go to that forum all the time and didnt remember that
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