a few notes
just found this blog:
Half the Sins of Mankind. Tonight, I'm going to add a few leftie blogs to the blogroll. I've been meaning to do it for a while, I don't know if they'll get their own category (probably not, seems a bit...divisive, or something. Maybe great big "L" beside their name, or perhaps a hammer and sicle. Kidding, kiding). For, primarily, two reasons: One is that, in the conservative blogosphere, only the far-left wackjobs tend to get linked, usually in a sentance like "Check out these assholes". Really, we already know what Kos thinks. I don't have to read Kos or DU or Oliver Willis, I already know most of what I'll find, and it will either bore me or irritate me. Same goes for Powerline and some of the other right wing politicos, I don't read them much either.
But the vast majority (I think, or I hope) of lefties and Democrats, while they may agree with Kos on occasion, are not so angry and, well, disagreeable when it comes to talking about ideas. We may not agree, but at least we can disagree and throw childish insults at each other without anyone becoming seriously offended.
I used to work with a guy that was a hardline, far-left liberal and proud of it. He is, as he described it, a "European Socalist", in the grand tradition of Zapatera, and, I suppose, Stalin (heh). He was also a Poly-sci and Econ major, who had a much better idea what he was talking about than me on many issues, especially international economic ones. He respected America for what it is, not in a phony "I burn the flag because I love it" or whatever bullshit way, but as a country that had done alot of good but that he had a great many disagreements with; he was reasonable but we were often looking at a problem from two different perspectives. We had many conversations, nobody's mind was changed but they were interesting and we were still friends at the end. He didn't call me a Nazi, I only called him a commie pig a few times, and we both respected each other's opinions (at least, I think. He may have been going home and bitching about this right-wing dorkwad he had to work with, but it didn't seem that way).
Anyway, that's what I like to find. Someone whom I disagree with, on an intellectual level, that can keep it from becoming an emotional firestorm; and whose opinions aren't wack-job conspiracy-theory crazy. The two seem to go hand-in-hand, the more of a wack job a person is, the more likely they are to call you a Nazi or a traitor.
The other reason, and I'll try to keep this one shorter, is that I generally find interesting stuff to write about at these places. I enjoy reading right-wing blogs, but there isn't much to write about when I agree with the author. I don't have to do much. I simply say "Yep, that seems about right", and move on to the next post. But when I disagree with a post, I have to figure out why, then figure out if that's a defensible reason, and then, for my own ego, I want to tell him or her why I think they're wrong. Much more entertaining than just blithe agreement.
Anywho, it's a short list, for the moment:
Talkleft,
This is Class Warfare, and
Half the Sins of Mankind. Two of those came from
Protien Wisdom, the other from
Sadie. Hopefully, I'll be able to add more as time goes by, I know I'm glossing over alot. And note that these folks aren't exactly Zell Miller; they're talented folks I enjoy reading with defensible opinions I happen to disagree with, and aren't likely to descend into name-calling within the first two or three posts. The biggest reason I'm adding them tonight is because I have some links from Half the Sins of Mankind I want to write about, which will be the next few posts here.
This also means I'm going to have to watch my drunken rhetoric. Or, then again, maybe not.
