It feels bitter here to me on DKos. Rancorous. It feels like a lot of people are sniping at each other, more than usual. That's a shame.
Yeah, it's gonna be one of those kind of diaries...
Maybe I'm the only one that feels it. I dunno. I'm a pretty old Kossack, as you can see from my four-digit UID. I just went back and looked at my posts from the very beginning, and I was surprised to see how acrimonious things got. I started off in 2004 criticizing John Kerry, and was immediately pounced upon for being a "downer" and a troll. People even posted recipes, a popular response to trolls back then. Remember that? Good times.
Anyway, I remember being surprised by the reaction I got. All I had done, I thought, was post my honest opinion and analysis of the situation. I thought as those things go it was pretty accurate, and as things played out I turned out to be pretty close to the mark. But that's not the point. The point was that there seemed to be a criticism of the very act of stating an opinion other that RAH RAH WE'RE GONNA WIN. And that kind of disturbed me.
It has continued to do so. I have always felt that blind allegiance was a trait of the OTHER side. I thought we came to our support of progressive beliefs after a rational examination of the facts. I thought we were supposed to be the smart ones, not the emotional ones. But what I came to learn is that there is a huge emotional element to faith in any -ism, whether political or religious.
After that I waxed and waned in activity, sometimes posting a diary every day, while at others being absent entirely for long stretches. Once as long as two years. I am coming off one of those stretches now, albeit not one as long as the aforementioned two years. Sometimes this activity has coincided with busyness in real life, at others with a corresponding wax and wane in political interest. One time I took a break to headline a play. (Frost/Nixon, if anyone is interested. I was Frost, not Nixon!)
Each time I have returned, it has seemed to me that the rancor and bitterness had increased a little. Or maybe it was me. Maybe every time I returned my opinions had slipped that much more out of the DKos mainstream. But I found that there were certain issues that could not even be discussed. Encouraging the use of English, for example. Or raising the retirement age. The mere suggestion of such things would arouse hysterical accusations of parroting a "right-wing talking point." It was as if I were a heretic.
And in truth, maybe I am. Maybe I'm not a real liberal. I am a socialist, I can say that much. I believe in a cradle-to-grave system of social welfare, a la Sweden. (Hey, these people invented Volvo, Abba and IKEA! I think they've got their shit together pretty damned good!) I believe in state ownership of natural resources, and strict controls on corporations. I believe in the redistribution of wealth. And while I don't hate the rich, and indeed would love to be one myself, I do believe they should be taxed heavily. Half of $50 million is still a HELL of a lot of money.
I'm socially liberal on a lot of things. I believe in legalizing marijuana and gay marriage. I believe in a woman's right to choose. In fact, I often describe myself as "Not Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion. There are too many goddam people already." And while this is meant to be facetious, nevertheless there is a seed of truth in it, because I believe that the world is wildly overpopulated and that we must take steps as a society to reduce it. This will undoubtedly be met with accusations of callousness, but we would could really use is a global superplague. The Black Death may have been horrible, but without it there would never have been a Renaissance.
But on other social issues I am not so in line with most liberal thought. I do not like Affirmative Action, for example. I agree with the assertion, unfortunately often made by right-wing ideologues, that any race-based system is inherently unfair. The difference is that they say it in a cynical attempt at one-upsmanship. Conservative pundits and decision makers don't give a rat's ass about working class white people any more than they do minorities. But nevertheless, they're right. You can't fix racism with more racism. I say if we are going to have Affirmative Action it should be based on socioeconomic class, not race. Give ALL the poor kids a leg up.
I also differ with progressive orthodoxy when it comes to the issue of retirement. I believe that it is not realistic to expect people to work for thirty years and live thirty years in retirement. The numbers just don't add up. And I don't mean the numbers from Social Security. I mean the societal numbers. You can't negate your contribution to society by being a drain on it in equal measure. I know that's an oversimplification. But it just doesn't make sense to me that we expect to live a third of our lives in retirement. I mean, it would be nice, for sure. God knows I'd love it. I HATE working. But I just don't see any way around it.
Now, what SHOULD be the retirement age, I don't know. Maybe index it to your general health and line of work. Maybe institute a system of graduated semi-retirement, working fewer and fewer hours as you get older. Maybe some other solution people way smarter than me might come up with. I just don't think it's unrealistic to expect that as we live longer, better lives that we have longer working lives as well.
But the ANGER such ideas seem to arouse...
Not that I'm always right. Heavens no! Hell, in one diary in '07 or '08 I talk about seeing John Edwards in person and what a man of integrity he seemed to be. HAH! Didn't exactly call that one, did I? But yeah, I was an Edwards man. Ah, to be 35 and foolish again!
I'm also the guy who said that it was good that Tony Snowe died of cancer. Some of you may remember that this caused a little brouhaha. Bill O'Reilly mentioned the comment, and I've seen it quoted by right-wing sites. In retrospect, that comment may have been over the line. (I don't think I actually said it was "good" that he died, just that I did not care. But still.) My point was merely that this was a man whose job was to lie to our faces, so he was no great loss to society. And yeah, that's cold. And yeah, it's judgmental. But I guess I'm a pretty judgmental guy. Which is another way in which I differ from most progressives. Or maybe not.
And then there is religion.
I am an atheist. The other day I posted a diary about Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, in which I expressed my atheism in the strongest possible terms, including criticism of the very tenets of Christianity. You don't have to read it. The short version is that the comments quickly turned into an argument between me and self-identified Christian progressives. It wasn't pretty. And I will accept my share of the responsibility for that. I make no bones about the fact that I think religion is nothing but stupid, silly superstition. Someone said in that thread that God is just Santa Clause for grownups, and I agree with that assessment.
Some people took that as intolerance. If by that they meant intolerance for stupidity, then yes. If they mean intolerant of the people who express that stupidity, then maybe. It depends on the situation. I am intolerant of people whose opinions are informed by their belief in a purportedly magic Jew having a say in public policy. I think that's a recipe for disaster, as we are currently seeing in this country. If people want to believe in magic, that's fine. But they need to keep it to themselves. If they choose to express it publicly then they'd better be prepared for scorn. I know that many people, especially on the left, disagree strongly with that opinion, the manner in which I express it, or (most often) both. But I am comfortable in my contrarian-ness.
I guess I better be. Over the years I think I have had a position contrary to the mainstream of opinion here more often than not. It's often made me feel like an outsider, and wish there were someplace for people who thought like me. I'm certainly no conservative. And "libertarians" are no better -- in my experience they are just conservatives who like the idea that they're somehow "different." No, I am definitely more comfortable with progressive ideas. So the why am I so often at odds with the majority here?
I didn't realize how long this had gotten. My, how I have rambled. I'm not even sure where I was going with this when I started. Oh, yeah: The acrimony here. Or maybe "anger" would be a better word. Or maybe even "frustration." I can't be the only one who feels it. More and more it seems like comment threads descend into shouting matches, and I don't just mean my own. Either that, or we get feel-good diaries that reinforce our pre-existing, orthodox progressive notions. I feel like what's missing is honest introspection. Where is the self-criticism? Where is the self reflection? Do we just choose a side and then follow it blindly, or do we question WHY we believe what we believe?
I don't know, maybe I'm not expressing myself very well. Or maybe I'm just wrong. Either way I've already talked too long. I wanted to get into why I believe Barack Obama should have just let the debt ceiling expire, because the system is so flawed that we're better off just letting it self destruct, but that would take forever, and it would just start another fight. And I don't want that. I don't want to be the badguy any more. Because after all these years, I'm starting to wonder if maybe -- just maybe -- I'm the asshole.