My rebuttal to all those who would silence dissent.
"Democratic" Dogmatists
It’s hard for me to believe it but I find myself agreeing with Bill O’Reilly in his labeling of The Daily Kos as a hate site. I posted a couple of pieces over the past few months & because I had the temerity to criticize Randi Rhodes for her vicious attack on Ralph Nader a few years ago, I too, was mocked, ridiculed, & insulted. I was shocked because I thought The Daily Kos would be an open-minded, progressive site & Thom Hartmann, whom I listen to avidly, highly recommended the site.
The last piece that I posted really brought the venom to the surface. I received well over 200 responses to my piece and the overwhelming majority was plain nasty. I was accused of being a "troll" which I assume must mean that I’m like some ugly creature hiding under a bridge & attacking or undermining the "good democrats" of The Daily Kos? What struck me were the snide ness, the arrogance, & the attitude of most of the respondents like they were some exclusive club of insiders. I have voted for democrats my entire life & I’m 54 years old but if this site is representative of the Democratic Party, we are in serious trouble!
I was accused of being a Republican operative basically. Perhaps they think I’m an agent provocateur or something. Yeah, right! If any of the paranoid jerks would’ve taken the time to check out the other pieces on my page, they would’ve seen a piece I wrote titled "Reasons Why A Young Person Should Not Join the Military," & they’d clearly see where my sympathies & convictions lie. I was heartened by a handful of respondents who understood where I was coming from & who said they too were disgusted by the hatred & the petty viciousness of so many of the comments. I am sick to death of spineless democratic senators & representatives and I will continue to criticize them loudly & frequently and if this makes me the "enemy," then so be it! Arrogant ignoramuses like those on The Daily Kos only help to perpetuate the dismal state of affairs.
I couldn’t resist posting the last piece because I had just watched Democracy Now---which I watch daily---and Ralph Nader was on for the hour. I asked in my piece if Amy Goodman was now the enemy as well, and not one of the thought-police bothered to answer my question. I have been reading, eating, sleeping, writing about politics for 30 years & know that no one has the corner on truth. But it seems that the vast majority of those who post on The Daily Kos are absolutely positive that they have the truth. Democracy is suppose to be about equality, truth, justice, free speech, etc., but the narrow-minded & mean-spirited in-crowd of The Daily Kos have either forgotten these simple principles or don’t give a damn about them. Welcome to the new Russia where you’re only allowed to speak your mind if you agree with the gatekeepers or tow the party line.
As for me, I still believe that we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than that of Karl Rove, Limbaugh, & O’Reilly. When they try to shut me up, they’re just proving the bully & liar, Bill O’Reilly, right and doing the same as him by telling everyone who disagrees with them to "Shut Up!" Democracy is about equality in the fullest sense or meaning of the word and not about snobbishness. I take comfort in the wisdom of Noam Chomsky & Howard Zinn to name just two of our leading dissidents. Both of these luminaries have stated quite clearly that voting is only a fraction of the work that needs to be done on a regular basis. We need to organize at the grassroots level, protest, sit-in, teach-in, write letters to editors, politicians, etc., commit acts of civil disobedience if we feel passionately enough, etc. But if we are shouted-down, insulted, etc. by so-called democrats like those vipers on The Daily Kos, we are doomed to failure! And the true Republican reptiles & conservative cockroaches can just kick back and laugh while we self-destruct. Dissent is the heart of democracy & the right to dissent is key to our freedom & the rock upon which this experiment was founded. If we are to survive the assault on our freedoms by the Neanderthals on the Right, we have to also watch out for the Neanderthals of the democratically correct. In conclusion, that night that I got all the belligerent bile from the bogus ‘democrats’ of The Daily Kos, I stumbled across a segment of Liberty News T.V. and it was so fitting because Howard Zinn was on & he spoke about this very subject & succinctly and eloquently as he usually does.
"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."
---Learned Hand, Morals in Public Life [1951]