Letters to the Editor
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Skeptics waxing esoterically on the meaning of
Reactionary
finding common ground and compromise towards the best possible outcome
How does a healthy skeptic prioritize current issues in importance?
healthyskeptic keeps dancing between the term's inference in a Versailles context versus the Marxist context and has emerged with perhaps a truly modern context. A perjorative for those who are afraid of being called a leftist, a.k.a. authoritarian enabler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary
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The score so far...
By my count, huffyseptic hates dirty fucking hippies, tree huggers, feminists, everyone who tars him as a fringe lefty, and everyone he tars as a fringe lefty.
I can hardly wait to find out what he thinks of Teh Gays, but I doubt I'll have to wait very long!
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@healthysceptic re: What did the left nut say to the right nut?
When any person takes it upon themselves to provide a list of moderate policy positions, they immediately open themselves to criticism from anyone with a different list.
Since many people prefer to think of themselves as believing in, if not the truth, then at least something that will not result in the accusation that they are a lunatic commie fascist nazi over-the-top whackjob criminal or sexual deviant, they will normally insist that everything they are moderate and those who have differing opinions are not.
To be clear, I am, in fact, a moderate. As a moderate I believe in constitutional law, the separation of church and state, the rights of the individual as defined in documents such as the Magna Carta, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the U.N. Charter.
As a moderate I also believe in free economic trade (not to be confused with the monopoly capitalism currently practiced by America's corporocrazy), free education, free healthcare, free sex and free speech although not necessarily in that order.
As a moderate I also believe that a democracy should not bomb or invade other countries who have done nothing to deserve it, should not murder, torture, imprison, disappear, or smear innocent people, whether citizens or not and should not spend all of their money on war, sell themselves into a foreign debt they can never repay and then scream that there is no money for anything else.
As a moderate I also believe in decriminalizing most drugs, allowing public nudity, legalizing prostitution and allowing pretty much anything else that represents normative behavior in beautiful, beautiful Copenhagen.
Anyone to the near left or right of my moderate beliefs is a liberal or conservative, respectively. Anyone the the far left or right of my moderate beliefs is an extremist.
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re re re Healthy Skeptic
"passion and principled idealism" is bunk
I wonder if you are trying to get a rise out of me.
What fringe lefties and righties really mean when they say that is they want someone who passionately endorse their views. The "passion" part is important, because they're often political suicide no practical politician trying to get things done would ever adopt rationally.
I am not "fringe" by the standards you have mentioned, but in what looks like a response to me, you are attributing that label to me, and saying that I really want is someone who passionately endorses my views. That has a bit of an accusatory tone to it - yet it is true that I want a leader who passionately endorses the Constitution, civil rights, trial by jury, habeas corpus, separation of church and state, and checks and balances among the branches of government. I do admit that I would be very happy to see a leader risk political suicide to do the right thing and passionately stand by the principles our country was founded upon. Again, I refer you to the excellent principles set out in Digby's speech and Mr. Greenwald's post today.
I think we need politicians passionatly dedicated to the principles of democracy, which are finding common ground and compromise towards the best possible outcome.
Then you turn around and say this. It seems like the specific things you say are less important to you than accomplishing something by saying them - you don't clarify what that might be and you don't clarify who your "we" is (aside from "not all y'all). I don't feel engaged in an actual conversation.
Regards to you, and good day, sir/ma'am.
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Who is fringe?
Well, I've given examples. I think the definition of fringe is pretty obvious, statistically and politically speaking.
The problem is they don't want to admit they're fringe, even though statistics clearly show they are, so they wrap themselves in rhetoric about "passion" and "idealism" and such platitudes and excuses for failures to achieve policy goals or otherwise compromise, and so become increasingly irrational about how democracy works and increasingly bubbled with other "true believers."
Blogs are especially prone to attracting such people. For example, the LGF people are certainly a fringe, and most people in real life would probably consider them complete assholes. But on LGF they have found the perfect little echo chamber and assure each other they're god's chosen few. The left fringe would never admit it does that anymore than the right wing fringe would.
Is Glenn "fringe"? Is Digby "fringe"?
I think Glenn is pretty good and agree with most of what he writes. He's one of the few things Salon still has going for it.
Digby is pretty good most of the time, but can be more ideological and pandering, and sometimes rather sloppy, though often posted with all seriousness, which is different from when someone like Jon Stewart is sloppy when going for a joke. when digby stumbles into pandering or going for the easy applause line from the left base, then she doe a disservice to the broader left and how it;s represented to the middle, imo.
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healthyskeptic
"I can tell you're not exactly a deep thinker."
I can tell you're not exactly familiar with Paul Dirks' posts.
No kings,
Robert
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Glen: on Digby's voice
"I thought for a few days about why I had such an entrenched assumption that Digby was male. You identified many of the factors -- the masculine-sounding psuedonym (though is it really?) and the picture of the man at the top of the blog (wiich is definitely a big factor). But there is clearly more to it than that. There is something about her writing voice that just makes people think she's male. It's an interesting question as to why that is. I still haven't really figured that out."
I'm mortified that I made exactly the same assumption for the same reasons. What is truly mortifying to me, as a woman and as a writer, is that I suspect it has something to do with the easy directness of Digby's writing -- that there's no hint of apology for her arguments. She's never arrogant, but she's also wholly self-possessed (and not defensively so) in her prose. Many women, myself sadly included, corrupt our writing with self-referential and self-conscious locutions -- self-, self-, self-, all the time. Like I'm doing now. . . .
Digby is a great lesson. I've been reading her for years and I will now do so with an attuned ear for how much more I can yet learn from her.