don’t move here (unless you really wanna live here)

I’ve had a bit of fun at the expense of TalkAmarillo, the bulletin board run by the Amarillo Globe-Republican and recently publicized on the front page of that newspaper. I call TA “Freeperville West” because its Talksters have a misbegotten tendency to post violent rants similar to those posted by the “Freepers” on Free Republic, the infamous right-wing hate site. And although this particular practice seems to have abated some in recent months, I know from personal experience that liberal posters have been banned repeatedly from TA for no crime other than that of expressing liberal opinions. This has happened to me more than once; it has happened to my friends.

Recently, I quoted a post by someone epically misnamed “GroovyOne” who called for massive amounts of gun violence against the peace-loving citizens of San Francisco. GroovyOne also threatened to shoot police officers of the city by the bay. The post was quickly removed from TalkAmarillo after I quoted it here. But the damage was done. The administrator of TA had already left GroovyOne’s post up long enough for the comment to acquire a fairly long thread. And many—if not most—of the commenters sang along with GroovyOne’s violent siren song.

Meanwhile, Curious Texan, a self-styled conservative gadfly who frequents these here parts, has had quite a bit of fun at the expense of Panhandle Truth Squad. Recently, he pointed to a book about liberal hypocrisy called Do As I Say. If you can judge a book by its cover, this one—with Usual Suspects Michael Moore, Barbara Streisand, and Hillary plastered across the cover—has all the credibility of Fox News.

But CT’s point is valid: liberals are imperfect, and, at this Strange juncture, appear to be becoming even more so. Even as the practice of banning liberals wanes in isolated sectors of the conservative blogosphere, the largest liberal blog has become infested with thought police. Lately, questioning comments or divergences from party line on the Daily Kos are sure to be rewarded with at least a few “troll” ratings. On another leftish site, a call for (Republican talking-points disseminator) Michelle Malkin to be “gang-raped by the entire left” was quickly removed.

It wasn’t always thus. It is a secret point of pride for me that even Curious Texan has admitted that he was attracted to the Panhandle Truth Squad because of the “level of the discourse”. Such discourse has ever been one of the pleasures of being on the liberal side of the blogosphere. Free Republic can’t begin to compete with the discussions on Kos even today, and a couple of years ago the difference was even more pronounced. Liberal bloggers actually attempted to spell correctly! They thought about what they were typing! And—most importantly—they corrected each other and themselves when they were wrong!

So why are liberal sites suddenly plagued with troglodytes, bad-spellers, rude jerks, dull-normal poseurs and violent haters? Here’s my theory: it’s gotten easier to be a liberal. It used to be hard work. In a weird parody of the standard right-wing line about gay people, DNA didn’t make you a liberal. It was a choice made because you had thought about the issues. And it wasn’t a choice made lightly. In the sharp relief of the world immediately post-9/11, openly admitting to being a liberal was like wearing a turban in an airport. In the early naughties, only True Believers would put up with the abuse. Idiots didn’t care enough. Poseurs didn’t see the point. The rude jerks and the violent haters were too busy abusing the French.

But now as we hurtle toward 2006, the zeitgeist is moving in a different direction. Bush’s popularity has plummeted. People—even congresspeople—openly talk of withdrawing from Iraq. Now, it’s safe for dumbasses and assholes to be liberals, too. And just as the Daily Kos has learned the price of having tens of thousands of subscribers instead of hundreds, so liberals are beginning to learn how much all this new blood will cost us.

So: Happy Holidays. Give thanks for all the steps toward victory we've taken, oh my yes, give thanks. But also remember fondly the more Darwinian times of the recent past, when only the best and brightest of progressives survived. And try to imagine a future where we bring the idiots up to our level instead of so rapidly sinking to theirs.

SPACEDARK