UPDATE: I want to thank everyone for commenting. I'm trying to read them all. Didn't have time last night to do it, because I was at yet another Dem Party meeting.
The one thing I will say is that several people have become upset about the satirical diary posted following my diaries format. Please don't get too upset about it. I understand the sentiment, and more than a few people think it is mocking me. It's not worth the effort to argue the point. Frankly, it is satire, and I don't have a problem with it. If we lose satire, well hell, we might as well pack up and go home.
I never been this close to one before. Sure, I've taken breaks from blogging, mainly from fatigue in working to hard both in the political arena and my career.
But this is different. It's palpable. I don't know if it's anger, or frustration, or general lack of thinking or what. But it appears that I see a lot of context being missed, a lot of stuff being misintepreted, and a lot of core principles being abandoned here. There arguments, there is blogging, and there is a lack of deceny.
And I'm not sure which end is up anymore.
It started with a discussion I had with a political friend of mine. He said he doesn't like blogging "because all he sees is hate." Mind you, this guy is no O'Reilly dittohead. He's probably more hardcore progressive than I am. But his experience comes from the yelling and screaming that does, you know, on occasion, go on in the blogosphere.
I pretty much ignore it, but it's been getting to me lately. Recently, I posted a diary about how I went to a local Republican Central Committee meeting and watched some fireworks. They actually diposed of their Chair. I gave a fairly accurate report of what went on, more journalistic than anything. I forwarded a copy to a local blogger friend of mine. His e-mail response sent me back on my heels:
Don't humanize them. They are godless animals.
My jaw dropped a little. I hate what the current crop of Republicans stand for, absolutely. But I would never say they are godless animals.
And here's why: I have great hope in the netroots. That it will actually elevate the level of political discourse over time. That we can demonstrate a better way of politics. But I'm seeing more and more that many of us are merely copy-cating the Republican playbook and slapping a progressive cover on it.
It started a couple months back, when I wrote this diary about how I thought the talking point about Pelosi doing her "constitutional duty" with regards to impeachment needed to be dropped. I provided what I thought was a somewhat scholarly diary on impeachment, citing the Constitution and all that. Some folks actually commented in the diary as saying this was legal parsing and semantic bullshit.
And that is when it first hit me. Never in my life would I think that Kossacks would look at the Constitution and poo-poo it as having no meaning. At that point, I brushed it off, because I realized people were realeasing steam.
Then a few days ago, as John Edwards stated that as part of his health care plan, he would cut the health care benefits of the President, Congress and political apointees if the plan wasn't passed by 2009, several people pointed out that it might indeed violate the 27th Amendment of the Constitution. Some engaged in scholarly debate on the issue...many others simply stated they didn't care.
That alarmed me. Deeply.
To say you don't care about the Constitution, because you believe it is the right thing to do...that is a maxim of the George W. Bush's of the world. The best retort I saw was imagine if Bush said he was going to propose withholding salaries of Congress if they didn't vote for more war funding. But I actually read someone say that they didn't care if it violated a little ole Congressman's rights because those damn Republican Congressmen have been screwing with our rights for so long, screw them.
I didn't realize that we suddenly had abandoned the principle of protecting everyone's Constitutional rights.
This has me frustrated. And I'd like somebody to answer me.
Somebody please tell me that we are not going to become like the right in that we will twist and manipulate the Constitution to our own ends because we think it is right.
Somebody please tell me that we are here for a higher purpose...to advance our politics to a higher level. To improve our party and our country.
Somebody please tell me that we are not going down the road of continuous name-calling, demonizing, and the like, all because "we're right and they are wrong."
Because if we are, then I lose the activists who have never gotten on a blog. I lose the folks that immediately write off the netroots as full of hate screeds, who won't look at them because of what they've seen and heard from bloggers.
And I need those folks too. I need them to help change our country. Because we can't do it alone.
And I'm afraid we might be alone before it is too late, if we continue down this road.
I fully expect to hear the concern troll label. Fine. I'm a big boy.
But if I do hear it, I hope you understand that is NOT what this is about.
This is about our core values and principles. Because I'd like to hear what they are again.
I'm not sure we know anymore.