Comment allez-vous

First, after having taken a hiatus from the notion, I have turned on the comments function again. I turned it off originally because of the drive-by commenter, the kind of moron who stops by various blogs and leaves idiotic comments as a way of stirring things up. It's a kind of practical joke, I suppose, but I've never been too fond of practical jokes. They are usually just an excuse for acting cruelly and irresponsibly.

I was also looking at the blog as being the new form of the newspaper column, and I wanted to see how I would approach such a task. Being my own biggest fan, I was relatively pleased.

On top of that, I had gotten burned by commenting on a couple of other blogs, and I had reached a point in which I just didn't need it any more. Thanks to the dopes on talk radio, there is a class of conservative who will argue mostly through invective rather than logic. They start out by classifying you as some stereotype, such as "tree-hugger" or "peacenik," and then assume that you've been brainwashed by some Central Committee. The possibility that someone could hold opinions other than theirs and have arrived at those opinions through some sort of logical process is horrifying to them, since the notion that there might be valid opinions that they do not subscribe to implies that they may be wrong. Since error is weakness, any who disagree must be attacked, preferably on the most personal level possible.

The White House is currently infested with any number of these creatures, as the statements made daily by and in behalf of the President show.

Democracy is a discussion. It is an ongoing argument between reasoned adults as to how best to provide for the community. It is not a contest between competing tantrums. Unfortunately, the tantrum-throwers currently seem to be in the ascendant.

Civility is a central problem that our society current wrestles with. True civility has been lost in a dung heap of partisanism awash in meaningless labels, such as "liberal" and "conservative." We'll shoot for civility here, but you never know who is going to pass by.