Last week I posted Liberalism's Alter Nation, not one of my finest efforts but it did trigger an interesting exchange with Gary Farber who posts at Amygdala, a very interesting , often entertaining blog where he writes about science fiction (at least part of the time) which gains him significant points in my estimation. Among his comments on the post were two that I think are exceptionally revealing and underlined the most profound cause of the disconnect between the right and left in this country today.
In his first comment on my post Gary said:
The threat of Islamic terrorism is, in context, comparatively trivial, and no justification whatever to give up the liberty our country holds sacred.
Except at the extremes of left and right, it seems to me that this is the key breaking point in our discourse. If Gary is correct in saying that al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism present a "comparatively trivial" threat, it logically follows that one would be much less concerned about such issues as media bias, the left's conscious and unconscious assault on our war efforts, "whistle blowers" outing the NSA surveillance program, and a whole host of other disputed problems. On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, that Islamic terror represents an existential threat to the West, then the leaks about the NSA program in the New York Times and Washington Post become a major issue of treasonous behavior from the media conjoined with opportunistic and suicidal behavior by the left side of the political divide.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of this fundamental disagreement on basic assumptions.
Gary's second comment holds out some hope for finding common ground, though the distance we need to travel often appears to be impossible to bridge:
I'd suggest conversation and a willingness to trade and compare ideas and arguments.
"One cannot reason with those voices whose tenets are unreasonable."
Entirely true. Echo chambers produce that effect. Back in reality, sensible folks try to speak to each other.
Sites such as Powerline, or Atrios, don't help that, and, in fact, actively attack thinking.
I don't spend much time on Atrios, and when I have gone there, the level of discourse does not impress me. On the other hand, when Powerline puts together a post like yesterday's They'll Be OK if No One Reads the Report, it strikes me as a serious attempt to construct a logical, coherent, and consistent argument. I am sure there are many conservative bloggers who write polemical screeds which offer fertile ground for "fisking" just as there are an abundance of left wing bloggers who do the same.
I have found relatively few self-identified liberals (this protects me from having to actually define such terms as "liberal" and "left") who are anti-war and who are able to engage in a discussion of more than two or three sentences without resorting to the use of volume and ad hominem comments in lieu of factual arguments.
I would like to take Gary up on his recommendation, and see if we can try to be, in reality, "sensible folks" trying to speak to each other.
Tomorrow, I will try to put together some of the reasons I think that Islamic terror is of much greater import than the valid concerns about the dangers of an NSA type program. If/when Gary responds, or if anyone who disagrees responds with a thoughtful, reasonable comment, e-mail, or post, I will happily re-print it here and/or link to it, and respond to it in kind.
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