Emphasis Added

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Rayne in the Forecast

Apparently my long-time blogbuddy Rayne took up the gauntlet from Sunday's "Great North" post over on her own splendid site, drawing some of the fire her way. In the comments, she tangles with Matthew DeLuca, taking issue with his (backhanded, in Rayne's view) assessement of my patriotism, among many other things. Read the comment thread - it's fun. I just tried to insert another post there, but encountered the dreaded "403 - Forbidden" error (which means something is wrong with the Salon comment server - don't take it personally!). Fortunately, I have another outlet for my thoughts, right here. Would-be comment follows, and it goes like this:

Rayne �

You wrote (in a previous comment)

I suspect Sweden is now on the list because of their tolerance of gays

If Matt is a homophobe, I have seen no evidence of it in his comments on my site. He�s a small-government guy. Sweden�s not his idea of paradise. I can grok that.

It�s also not fair to say that he�s trying win arguments by shouting and insults. He comes here, to our sites, and generally engages in civil and reasonable discussions. He listens, he follows links in our posts, he cites his own sources. That�s more than 99.9% of people of any political persuasion do. I often find his views disagreeable, but I almost never find his discourse offensive.

The kernel of our disagreement is that where I see moderate-liberal policies as benevolent and aggrandizing of American power (social, political, economic, international, and cultural), he sees a slippery slope to socialism, with all the problems that European countries are experiencing now in their (arguably) over-regulated, over-generous welfare states. I think his concern is reasonable, though misguided. I think he occasionally misinterprets what I write, or draws inferences (�if you believe this, then you probably believe that��) that aren�t always justified, sometimes conflating my basically-moderate views with something far more extreme and ridiculous. What can I say? That�s why we disagree.

The best we can do is counter with historical facts, comparisons to other countries, and other evidence that supports the �Greater America Liberalism� that�s consistent with our values. One thing I can�t stand is this equation that �liberal = leftist = hate America� being applied to everyone to the left of Bill Frist. I don�t think Matt believes that as an affirmative principle, but it�s the starting point in his (and others�) thinking that facts and arguments need to move him off of. Frankly, I think there�s ample evidence that the policies pursued by today�s Republicans are doing grievous and possibly irreparable harm to America�s medium- and long-term interests � far worse than anything the Democrats have ever been capable of � and I hold out the (perhaps overly optimistic) hope that intelligent, well-meaning folks like Matt, Gleason and others can be persuaded to see it that way before it�s too late.

And who knows? Stranger things have happened.

10:57:18 AM

Emphasize This! []