Liberals, Conservatives, Moonbats, and Wingnuts

We can change the world -
Re-arrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
It's dying - and if you believe in freedom
It's dying - let a man live his own life
It's dying - rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door
We can change the world

–Graham Nash, Chicago, 1971 (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young)

Ah… plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose¹. I got to thinking about the subject of this post in the wee small hours of the morning today, and Chicago popped into my head. Fitting. The year was 1971, the Têt Offensive had been over for a year, and although we didn’t know it at the time, the Viet Nam war was lost. The country was gearing up for an election that threatened to tear us apart as a nation, or so it seemed at the time. The election was anti-climactic; Nixon won in a landslide, only to resign less than two years later. Watergate. And that tune, Chicago, was part of the soundtrack of our lives back then. At least it was a mainstay for those of us of the Liberal political persuasion. I’m not sure what the conservatives were listening to at that time, because I didn’t talk to them. At all. They were The Enemy. The Man.

Plus ça change…

I’ve been cruising some of the more virulent Lefty blogs lately, and I’ve linked to a few of them, at times, simply to illustrate how over-the-top the rhetoric is getting these days. Occasionally, I’ll comment on a post there, if allowed. I say “if allowed” because some Lefty blogs don’t want me or my kind there; Democratic Underground is the prime example. Generally, (strong emphasis on “generally,” there are exceptions) my comments are shouted down, so to speak. Or I am dismissed as someone mouthing “Right-Wing talking points,” or I’m “un-evolved,” or, a lot of the time, I’m simply “evil”…in so many words. Each and every one of those terms has been applied to me in the course of a “discussion.” It’s almost enough to make me quit trying.

I’m not saying the Right is pure in this regard. There is at least one Wingnut for every Moonbat out there. I’ve quit reading the comments at Little Green Footballs and Free Republic, among others, because the rhetoric there can be just as bad, if not worse, than that found on the Left. Civil political discourse is awfully damned rare these days. And I’m not talking just about blogs. Talk radio, especially on the right, can be particularly bad. But this is more a function of the void of Left-oriented Talk Radio, Air America being the exception, and when it goes there will be a serious hole (and thus all the talk on the Left of reviving the “Fairness Doctrine.” Bad idea.). And then there are the authors…e.g., Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity on the Right; Al Franken and Michael Moore on the Left. When it comes to the press, one usually has a choice, e.g., the Washington Post vs. the Washington Times. Unless you live in Seattle or San Francisco, where it’s awfully damned hard to find a conservative point of view. It all seems to be an echo chamber…but at least one is free to choose which echo chamber you want to be in. The downside is people who frequent the echo chambers don’t want to hear the opposing point of view, the opposition is wrong, by definition, or worse: you’re evil.

I could go on…and there’s much, much more to say on this subject, but I’m sure you get the point. We’re all Americans. Very damned few of us are evil; very damned few of us are in it simply for ourselves. We may disagree on the ways and means to get somewhere, anywhere, but we owe it to ourselves to at least listen to the other side, and to listen in a civil, non-disparaging manner.

Just sayin’.

¹ literally, “the more that changes, the more it is the same thing"