re: #309 LudwigVanQuixote

Oh for crying out loud. This blog has been chronicling crazy in politics since its inception. That is what we do here.

If you really think that discussion of Paul and Rush and Palin’s crazy is not relevant, you seem to be missing out on vast swaths of what is going on.

What is the point of writing a great big public you don’t want to hear them criticized post?

He’s not saying that. He just wants to see the crazy, insane, far left eviscerated as much as the crazy, insane, far right gets eviscerated. A truly nonpartisan blog would spend as much time focusing on the wacko, extremist, far right politicians, such as the Pauls, as it would on the wacko, extremist, far left politicians. You know, like the President.

Seriously though, the only thing I hear when I read complaints like this is the unstated ‘you don’t get angry about the same people I hate enough’. A different, but related, argument is the false equivalency one - those on ‘my side’ (which means, some people who hate the same people I hate) are obviously crazy, but… but… but I still really hate the other side. Can’t we get angry at them too? Listen carefully - feeling frustrated at the extreme crazy of one ‘side’ while simultaneously hating everyone on the ‘other side’ does not automatically make you a centrist. If anything, it makes you just as partisan, because it means you still see things in terms of ‘sides’, and us and them.

That, however, is not the most egregious false equivalency. The most egregious one is that focusing on some crazy people on one side of politics somehow makes you ‘in bed’ with the mainstream media. Just because the ‘mainstream media’ does not continually hammer on people you don’t like does not make them partisan. Just because most mass media outlets won’t give you your daily outrage in neatly packaged form does not make them biased propaganda machines of the government. Reading a bunch of blogs to find headlines that give you your Two Minute Hate is not the same as reading widely, and reading the blogs of the ‘other side’ so you can tut-tut about how misguided and childish they are is not being open-minded.

If what you really want is a quick hit of outrage, that’s the beauty of the internet. You can get it easily. You can even get it here if you read at the right time. But getting upset because you don’t get it exactly where you want is ridiculous.