Generally, I try to avoid speaking in the meta fights (other than to just laugh at people's self-righteous silliness). But lately I've been seeing a trend at DKos that disturbs me greatly, and I must say my rant about it . . . .
We've always had our pie fights and meta wars and ideological holy crusades here--indeed the entire Left is famous for it; what we've ALWAYS done best is fight with ourselves.
But lately there has been a trend here that I find very disturbing and can no longer tolerate--it is the trend to see anyone who disagrees about one's pet issue, whether it be the NSA or Obama or GMOs or anti-vaxx or gunz or Bitcoins or lots of other issues, as not mere disagreement, but as deliberate conspiracy. As DISLOYAL. As people who are THE ENEMY. As deliberate "trolls" or "disruptors" or "infiltrators" or "paid shills" or "corporate supporters" or "FBI plants" or "people who want to see Republicans get elected" blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.
In just the past two weeks, I've had anti-vaxxers call me a shill for Big Pharma, anti-GMOers call me a Monsanto troll, a Bitcoin apologist call me an agitator, and several acolytes of one former poster (who begins all of his diaries with a warning that anyone who disagrees with him is a shill or a troll) accuse me of being a corporatist or an "eliminationist" (whatever the hell THAT means). And in the ultimate example of absurdity, I've been called BOTH a "roxxer" and a "suxxer".
All of this, on whatever topic and from whichever side, comes from the same impulse---the impulse for too many of us here to believe that you are ALWAYS RIGHT. No matter the topic, no matter the stance, you alone have The One Truth(tm)(c). Everyone who disagrees with you, therefore, is, by definition, wrong. And further, since you are so obviously and self-evidently right, anyone who disagrees with you is not only merely wrong, but DELIBERATELY wrong. After all, only a simple-minded fool or a deliberate opponent could fail to see the self-evident rightness of your unassailable opinion, and therefore anyone who disagrees with you must, by definition, either be stupid, brain-dead, a moran, or a deliberate shill or troll whose sole purpose is to undermine your One Sole Truth(tm)(c) and lead everyone down the road to perdition (and obviously they are being led to do so by Monsanto or the NSA or the NRA or Big Pharma or whoever else the Big Enemy happens to be).
The very idea that perhaps you are simply WRONG, and that others simply HONESTLY DISAGREE with your opinions, literally never occurs to you--because it is so obviously self-evident that YOU ARE RIGHT. PERIOD. And since you are right, period, anyone who disagrees with you CANNOT be simply honestly disagreeing with you--they MUST be deliberate shills who are sworn enemies of whatever your favorite pet theory happens to be. Since you are always right, anyone who thinks you are wrong MUST be either stupid or dishonest. QED.
It is no different than the Goppers who brainlessly yell "SOCIALIST!!!!" at everyone who disagrees with them. It is nothing more or less than an attempt to shut down discussion and debate by delegitimizing any opinions other than yours and by dismissing any criticism without needing to respond to (or even listen to) it.
People are not "working to get Republicans elected" just because they disagree with you. People are not "supporting the croporatist agenda" just because they disagree with you. People are not "apologists for the NSA or Monsanto or Pfizer or Obama or the GOP or the NRA or whatever" just because they disagree with you. They are people who think you are wrong.
And believe it or not, you may indeed be wrong about things. Lots of things. Believe it or not, people who disagree with you may not actually be paid trolls or shills or agitators or infiltrators or plants or disruptors--they may just be people who think you are wrong. You are not the fount of Lightness, and people who disagree with you are not the paid agents of the Dark Side who are out to get you. People can and will disagree with you, and not because Darth Vader pays them to. They disagree with you because they think you are wrong. And you might be. You're not fucking infallible. Not everyone who doesn't get along with you is a paid corporate shill, or a hippie who wants Mitt Romney to appoint the Supreme Court, or whatever other idiotic paranoia you dream up. They don't get along with you because they think you are wrong. It's not all a big conspiracy for everyone to attack you and your pet issues. So get over yourself.
It's time we stop treating every ideological disagreement as if it were a fucking conspiracy to get you. It's time we stop treating every argument as an ideological battle to the death. It's time we stop treating people who are on the same fucking side as we are as our enemies. It's time we learn how to disagree. It's time we learn how to not get along. Without turning into paranoid lunatics who see enemies behind every tree.
I will not tolerate this horse shit anymore, and I will HR it every time I see it, no matter who it comes from. And I hope Kos follows through on his front-page post condemning it, and starts banning people for it. This shit has to stop---it does nothing more than create unnecessary acrimony, it adds nothing to any debate or discussion, it poisons the entire atmosphere and creates an idiotic "us vs them" dynamic, and all it does is allow some people to feed their massive martyr complexes. It should not be tolerated by anyone here on any side of any issue. And it won't end until people start getting bojo'd for it.