Stephen Taylor, Conservative Party of Canada member, has a post comparing Paul Martin to Nixon, complete with a poorly-Photoshopped picture. It exemplifies why I loathe almost every political blog on the planet.
The disease Polariza Americanus grew out of the American Mid-West in 2004. It’s now become a pandemic, infecting every corner of the globe.It affects normally rational people, turning them into radicals who believe anyone who thinks differently is a gibbering idiot. [more]
The main symptom of this ailment is red-hot hate. On both sides of the political spectrum, it kills any reasonable debate, ensures that bloggers only speak to the choir and renders the writer as the Glowing Light of Truth. You can often identify these blogs by the ridiculous array of badges, buttons and banners espousing their viewpoints.
In Stephen’s case, this is an exception–he’s normally pretty rational. That’s why his is one of the few political blogs I do read. Another is Debby’s. I rarely agree with her, but she’s a relatively rational human being and willing to engage in intelligent debate. I consider myself just left-of-centre, but I want to hear what the other side thinks. The same goes for the quite liberal Dave Pollard–he’s given to rhetoric, but still respects rational disagreement. I’ve debated with both of them, and been satisfied with the outcome. Nobody changed their mind, but nobody got vicious. The only political blog that I really dig is the BlogsCanada eGroup (I’m a very occasional contributor), because it takes all comers, regardless of political stripe.
But his latest post has reduced my opinion of Stephen. It’s a witless cheap shot, and just the sort of thing I’d expect from the blinkered poliblogging masses. Mine is a complaint as old as the Internet, but political blogs have really galvanized the narrow-minded.
Political blogs ought to be a stew of intelligent debate. They should depict citizens at their best, arguing passionately but sensibly over the issues. They should be free of character assasination and insult. I challenge every political blogger to engage in rational debate with the other side, without name-calling or assumptions of idiocy. Abuse and slander are easy–respecting your opponent and providing sound reasoning are far more challenging. However, the former’s never going to convince anyone of anything, is it? And why else would you be blogging?
This line of thinking originated while talking to Vanessa Richmond about her political blogging article for the Tyee (which, by the way, is looking great).
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Darren,
you’re absolutely right. It is a cheap shot and amounts to nothing more than character assassination. I’ve actually always abhored this kind of politics when it is at the expense of rational and coherent arguments. I must admit that I was a bit tired (and perhaps lazy) today and took the easy way out.
Time to raise the bar.
Thanks for keeping me honest.
Cheers,
Stephen
As it happens, I’ve been trying to find the time to get back to a comment by Arieanna on this post of mine from just a few days ago. We’re discussing what role speed plays in discouraging reflection and reducing civility in online discussions.
God knows I succumb from time to time to the temptation – nearly always when I post in the heat of the moment – and the result is almost always a post that’s at best glib and at worst mean. Do some of these guys deserve it? Probably – but that doesn’t mean sarcasm or invective does anything to advance the debate or change people’s minds.
Maybe blogs should start experimenting with speedbumps: comments and trackbacks that won’t activate until an hour after the post goes up, for example.
On the other hand, there may be no substitute for human restraint, which, online at least, seems to be in short supply. (Not just in politics, either. Check out some of the techie debates over Google’s rel=”nofollow” tag if you want to see real venom; they make us political types look like Sandra Boynton.) And that worries me, because unless we work hard to prevent it, bad speech drives out good, as people with something positive to contribute seek out a less poisonous forum. Recently, we’ve seen American cases of political consultants deliberately using bitterly negative advertising not to damage their opponent but to suppress turnout – as voters lose their appetite for having anything to do with the mudslinging. The blogospheriverse could very easily succumb to much the same thing, even without anyone really intending it to happen.
Incidentally, Stephen, very classy mea culpa.
Isn’t comparing a politician to Nixon in a blog sorta similar to Godwin’s Law in online discussions? The sentiments and reasoning seem the same.
Succinctly put, Darren, kudos to Stephen for the admission, and Rob, speedbumps are a great idea–let’s have them soon!
“Polariza Americanus”, though, arose at least as early as 2000, with the disputed (or stolen, depending on who you ask) election. The rhetoric since then on both sides has done nothing to improve the tone of the discourse; consider the demonization of the word “liberal”.
Increasingly, I find myself avoiding blogging on the outright political, because it’s hard to create a rational, thorough debate that’s only one post long and can hold the interest of the reader.
Thus, it seems to me, the political blogosphere contains the seeds of irrelevance for anyone not open to discussion: Your “reader’s club” will post complimentary comments and your opponents either flame or stay away. Your blog would risk becoming an echo chamber, like the Rush Limbaugh show.
Still, with an election on the way here at home, methinks extensive (fair-minded!) blogging is called for.
“Polariza Americanus” goes back before 2000. I remember reading Republican literature online around 1990 that would fit right in with today’s rhetoric.
Read some of the characterizations of Roosevelt and the New Deal. Our American brothers, as far as I can tell, have always been deeply polarized.
Perhaps this polarization is the result of the two party system the Americans have. Although there are currently only two parties in Canada that could reasonably win a majority, the Bloc and NDP do win a fair number of seats. Maybe the existence of alternatives, even a few, prevent a massive Canadian polarization.
Just a musing.
Canadian politics stinks. I’ve always been a conservative. I love Mulroney. Looks like I’m voting NDP soon. Better than voting for a modern day bigot or a cheat.
Well said, Darren, although I think 99% is probably high for an estimate of the percentage of political blogs which are mindlessly partisan/cheap shot artists (I’d say 90%, tops :).
I think besides speed which Rob points out, the other factor with blogging is that there is rarely actual interaction between writer and subject.
People (and I include myself here) put things in print that they would never say to someone in person, or even on the phone, or perhaps even in an email (not sure about this last one).
It’s too bad Marshall McLuhan isn’t still around to give us some (cryptic) insight on how best to deal with a ‘hot’ medium like the internet.
As an aside, I think Chris makes a good point about the different levels of polarization between a two-party system and a multi-party system.