Trolls, Trolling, Trolled
Having been in this writing/blogging business for so long that people weren’t calling them blogs when I started, I have learned that there are certain kinds of reader posts that you would be better off not responding to. Here’s one:
Ugh, I never should’ve clicked on your political posts… These childish and simplistic (and dead wrong) democratic talking points you’re offering here are an absolute joke.
There are several reasons not to respond here. The first is that it throws around pejoratives without substance. Second, it’s inaccurate, betraying no familiarity with what I’m trying to do here. The third is, I learned long ago not to argue with this kind of mind, the one that simply labels things and decides they’re right or wrong on the basis of said arbitrarily-applied label. That’s not reasoning, it’s a reflex.
Thing is, I’m traveling for the book tour and I’m without my normal library of resources. With Chief Justice Roberts complaining about the president’s criticism of the Court’s recent ruling on corporate money in campaigning, I would like to do a “Things We Read Today” entry about previous such occasions, starting with the always fascinating battle of Thomas Jefferson vs. his cousin, John Marshall. Because I’m in a hotel, I can’t read it–all I’ve got with me is a so-so science fiction mass-market paperback. So here I am all dressed up, so to speak, with nowhere to go. Hence, I go to roll with the troll.
Maybe this is worth responding to after all, because there are other newcomers here who haven’t dropped by since my first mission statement. Simply: I was guardedly optimistic that the current president would be someone I could support, but I find I am no fan of him or the Democratic Party, having been disappointed too many times in their utter lack of leadership or fealty to their own purported positions. I am not a Democrat. I have greater faith in Dayton Moore than I do in anyone who rallies ’round the donkey flag.
Are my views sometimes in harmony with their purported views? I guess so, though there is no belief they won’t cave in or compromise on, whereas I am not quite so flexible or forgiving of those who do not have the commitment to act on their own supposed philosophies or what seemed to be a mandate coming out of the election (whatever it was, it is gone now). I believe that we have a moral obligation to have a social safety net. I believe in adherence to the United States Constitution. I believe in the Bill of Rights. If that makes me a liberal, fine, though I have no use for labels. Mostly I believe in pragmatism, and trying to do the right thing by the largest amount of people.
I do not identify with the Republicans because I don’t think we share the same beliefs. Simple as that. Am I willing to give them a fair hearing? Sure–when they have something to say that isn’t the same old boilerplate about taxes and shrinking government and communis–I mean, terrorist sympathizers, and so on, and so forth, etcetera and ad infinitum.
Mostly, I spend a good deal of time wishing that someone with a lot of dough and a modicum of common sense would found a viable centrist third party. You know, a Ross Perot, but one with substance, coherence, sanity.
So, call these notes at Wholesome Reading “Democratic talking points” if that makes it easier for you to dismiss ‘em, but that’s not what they are. They’re MY talking points, and I hope that they make sense to you as an attempt to understand, through an appeal to common sense and the history of this nation, the political era through which we are traveling together.
I am reminded of a scene towards the end of the musical “1776,” in which the clerk of Congress is asked if he’s on the side of John Adams (independence) or John Dickinson (stay with Britain). “Neither, he replies, flourishing a battlefield dispatch from George Washington. “I’m on the general’s side.” In the end, when Americans are suffering, be it from a lack of wages, lack of health care, or on the battlefield, that’s the only side you can be on, neither left nor right, but with whoever is trying to cut through the noise and push the country forward. Show me that banner and I’ll rush to stand under it.
Until then, please–don’t endorse any political party in my name. I’m sick of ‘em.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Hello Steven, I was at Politics and Prose last night for the baseball discussion. Good times! Totally agree with your position stated in this post. Have you ever looked into changecongress.org? They have some good ideas. Anyway, thanks for the great writing.
Jesse
Washington, DC
March 13th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Steve, you do a good job at Wholesome Reading as well as terrific stuff with PB on baseball. Love “Forging Genius,” a great book. One thing, though–why wish for a centrist third party run and funded by a wealthy scion when the Democratic Party is primarily centrist right now, and has been for the last 30 years? The Dems catered to Reagan on tax cuts, military spending, and the massive upward redistribution of wealth to the upper classes. Clinton did the same in some different ways, including gutting welfare programs by poaching the GOP’s “welfare reform,” which didn’t even deign to track the fates of former welfare recipients. Obama has continued Bush’s policies of buttressing corrupt, massive banks allegedly too big to fail to the detriment of homeowners, while the Dems have failed to push for hard, substantive reforms such as bringing back Glass-Steagall protections between savings and investment backing. This, of course, says nothing about one retreat after another on substantive health care, failing from the start to push hard for a single-payer system, then concocting other systems to provide care with some protections, but without cost restraints outside faith in a modified free-market form of health care.
In no small part, such delays have been the result of right-wing Dems such as Lincoln, Conrad, and the two-timing caucus leech Lieberman (a selfish free agent rather than an independent). But these are centrist stances. The Democratic Party of our times is a far cry from its counterpart in the 1930s, which enacted vast, substantive reforms such as Glass-Steagall, and widespread socio-economic legislation that came to form the New Deal. Conversely, what did the Dems do when they had power again after the ‘06 midterms about the rampant Bush abuses such as torture, rendition, a thoroughly unaccountable executive branch, spying on millions of Americans, well over a thousand signing statements, politicizing the DoJ, and on and on? Hold hearings, beat their chests, but not take hard, focused actions.
The Dems are primarily centrists, and have been for some time. With such a “left” party as the Dems, I shudder to think what another centrist party would concoct.
That said and off my chest, keep up the very good work, Steven.