The splintering of the left

The Green Knight has an interesting post up called Don't Fight the Culture War, about the fragmentation of the left, and the blog wars.

Here's an exerpt:

I don't really give a crap what other people believe or don't believe, religious or not, so long as they aren't aggressive jerks about it. When they start being aggressive jerks, then yeah, that I find objectionable and uncomfortable, not to mention harmful. Since I'm not out to convert anybody, I don't see why I should put up with other people trying to aggressively convert me -- to anything. But as far as what other people choose to believe or not, well, whatever.

Exactly! and if everyone would live and let live, and give each other the respect we deserve; the whole world would work a lot smoother, and more prosperously.

I still don't understand why some people can think they could game the system by being greedy - of money, of power. You don't have to have alot of either to abuse others with less, and there are burgeoning instances of those with petty powers that are abusing both the public trust, and the people around them.

This corruption has become endemic in our govt, our companies, our society. You read about scandal after scandal, and you become so frustrated that we have sacrificed excellence on an alter to the penny pinchers, and instead of replicating our prosperity around the world, we have allowed our prosperity to be exported and diluted.

Each outrage is replaced by another so quickly that we have no time to defend our way of life as it slips through our fingers. You get so used to slashing the opponent's arguments to ribbons that you begin to become hyper-reactive to any slightest deviation from what you in your gut know is true and right.

That is when you know that you have become them.


Solidarity is our only raft on the sea of life.