The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

Yeah, hard to imagine that the Los Angeles police might misbehave.

Much better to keep our heads down and say nothing.

From the story as reported I'm not sure judges had anything to do with it.

It does sem strange. I'm posting about it in the hope that someone will come forth to demonstrate that nothing of the sort actually happened, it's all a big exaggeration. Anyone?

I personally think quite a few of the parody logos are deeply lame, but good grief.

"Do you, or do I, wish to live in a bad democracy, that is, one in which consent is uninformed? I submit, bad democracies are as bad as any other bad system."

Ah. You're willing to let people have rights just so long as they live up to your standards of rationality in their exercise.

Small side note:

"Teresa, I've lurked here for a number of years, I may be a little OT but this time I had to comment. Thanx for writing."

Plus "DM SHERWOOD"'s evident belief that this is Teresa's blog. Remember, watch the skies!

(Thanks to Arthur Hlavaty for the heads-up.)

rasff award to Michael Weholt.

Avram, Dave Luckett's palming more than just that card. There are also these assertions:

(1) Debate can only happen when everyone's pleasant to one another, and

(2) Democracy "assumes" that "consensus can be achieved by rational debate from first principles".

Neither of these categorical claims is self-evidently true, nor does the history of the world offer a lot of evidence in their favor. Quite the contrary, debate often takes place when one or more sides are thoroughly ticked off. And democracy isn't remotely about "rational debate from first principles"; it's a mechanism for achieving governance by the consent of the governed, which ideally yields results that the largest-possible number of those being governed can live with.

I'm very much in favor of being nice. The world doesn't always give us that option. Observing that sometimes it's necessary to meet aggression with pugnaciousness is not the same thing as calling on us to "out-shout, overbully, and vituperate more effectively than the other side". Forgive me if it seems to me that some people are excluding middles just as quickly as they can spot them.

The fact that you're spending all this energy defending the Secret Service is why I suspect you're missing the point.

As you say, the Secret Service is statutorily obliged to look into all kinds of threats and often what turn out to be imagined threats. What I'm saying is that the current climate is one in which people feel far more emboldened to pursue their little personal vendettas by siccing the cops on one another. That's the corrosion I was talking about. That's what "McCarthyism" is--not the sweaty shouting Senator, but all the people who use the atmosphere of fear he creates as a means to get even with their sister-in-law.

Yes, a certain amount of this stuff always goes on, and I'm sure you can find instances of it under previous administrations, but more of it is happening now, as is usually the case when people are whipped into a state of fearful hysteria.

Alan is being a bit overwrought. The comment sections of (for instance) Eschaton and Political Animal feature frequent outbreaks of rudeness about right-wingers. The comment sections of (for instance) Little Green Footballs feature frequent outbreaks of out-and-out eliminationism. There's not a lot in Left Blogistan to match the retailing of Rachel Corrie "memorial" mouse pads, featuring a cartoon of a buldozer and the words "Got Syrup?".

It's not entirely fair to Alan, but his comment reminds me of this.

And the Olympic Broad Jump Missing The Point Gold Medal goes to...

I kind of spaced out on following this thread, but I do want to point out that Jerry Kindall's claim that

Any man who has reached the rank of general knows lots of things about getting things done and has undoubtedly developed strategies for leadership worth listening to and considering

is kind of one of the core tenets of conservatism. If you make it up the greasy pole, it must mean you're virtuous.

Xopher, you're right.

Francis, Xopher's right.

Nevermind. Obviously I'm having a bad brain day. Carry on.

As I said back to Henry, I certainly don't blame Kevin for running out of patience. I started this thread by saying I didn't think it's surprising that some of Kevin's readers should be honked off; conversely, though, I don't think it's outrageous that Kevin was curt. I myself have been certainly been rude to jerks of both the right-wing variety and of the lefter-than-thou variety. Indeed, the individual whose behavior prompted the whole "disemvoweling" schtick was a pushily insulting left-winger.

(For that matter, I've also been one or more variety of jerk on other people's boards. I am all sympathy with the wonderful varieties of humankind, when I'm not busy hating everybody.)

Francis, and everyone else: Let's avoid judgemental remarks, even speculative ones, about the parenting practices of particular individuals in the conversation. In my experience that's something that can turn a good discussion sour in a big hurry.

Yes, I know Dave Luckett's earlier self-critical remarks can reasonably be interpreted as having invited comment. Nevertheless.

I personally know parents who occasionally spank their kids, and I'm not remotely alarmed by this. They're good parents and good kids. I have no criticism of parents who maintain a policy of never striking the kids; and I have no criticism of parents who use moderate physical punishment in an occasional and careful way. Frankly, I suspect that consistency and dependability are most important; a parent who never raises their hand to a child but who's wildly inconsistent in how they treat the kid is likely to do more damage than a parent who uses mild physical discipline in a consistent way.

(Let it also be noted, of course, that my experience of being a parent consists of having no experience whatsoever.)

Anyway, as Lucy Kemnitzer points out, Dobson isn't about it being okay to sometimes swat an incorrigibly misbehaving kid; he's about the idea that children must be hurt regularly, constantly, "inventively and severely." Not to put too fine a point on it, he's a pervert, and his book is a hymn to perversion. This is what Disney/ABC thinks is more acceptable than a quiet mainstream Christian church that happens to welcome gay people.

As on so many fronts of our "culture war", the side calling itself "conservative" isn't remotely conservative; it's gaudily deranged.

"I think that this particular argument is sort-of-somehow connected to a more general argument about the extent to which winning politically involves not only ministering to your own supporters, but also building coalitions with people who aren't a natural part of your constituency. The latter may feel uncomfortable--but it's a necessary part of politics."

Of course, this kind of observation was the meat and drink of Electrolite for years. It says something that, while I still agree, I'm at this point far less big on the point, because a large part of me feels like we're no longer in normal political times. Sure, we can s-t-r-e-t-c-h for the last few extra crumbs of support, the last couple of Dan Drezners or Lincoln Chafees, and no doubt we should. But you know, the other side? They'll just cheat again, and win again. And the media will pretend it didn't happen again.

I believe in politics. I began Electrolite with several points I wanted to harp on, and one of them is that politics isn't about achieving the perfect, it's about coming up with solutions that the largest number of people can more or less live with. Far from being "necessary evils," in my view compromise and coalition are glories of civilization.

But I guess, deep down, I no longer believe we're engaged in a civilization. We're fighting people who have no intention of respecting the rules. They won't stop until they're afraid of us. So while I agree that it's important to "reach out" to the supposed reasonable center, I don't really think there's all that much there any more, and my heart's not in it. Maybe this is causing me to have a morally distorted view of certain interpersonal reactions in blogdom. And maybe I'm just being an asshole because I'm tired. I can be pretty good at giving eloquent advice; not so good, all the time, at taking it.

"It's disgusting. And it's very, very political. It's not, by the way, effective childraising: it doesn't develop a conscience, or a sense of obligation to other people, or responsibility. It develops fear, submission, resentment, and ambitions to get on the other end of the whip."

Lucy: Exactly. Also: whew.

I don't disagree with a single word of that.

Okay, wait, I do--I think there's a bit of a false opposition being drawn between (for instance) Atrios and a "more reasoned approach". How frequently is Atrios "unreasoned"? In fact the guy is smarter than a truckload of standard bears, and while he's often blunt he's rarely wrong. Certainly by any standard of "reasoned approach" worthy of grown-ups, Atrios is 5,271,009 times more "reasoned" than 90% of the punditocracy.

Quibble done, I appreciate Henry's remarks big time. I personally never meant to be dissing the wonkosphere. Blogs like Yglesias and Josh Marshall and The Decembrist and Brad Plumer make up a big part of my daily reading, and I even (shh!) read the DLC's Ed Kilgore. All I've been trying to zero in on is the fact that anger and passion and incredulity--emotion, not analytic remove--have been the primary forces building the lefty blogosphere. Most of us don't live inside the academy or the Beltway. For most of us, the stakes are literally more than academic; it's about whether the rest of of our lives will be miserable or not.

In that context, it's hardly surprising that the appearance of a Dan Drezner on a popular liberal weblog should result in some unkind remarks. It would be astonishing if it didn't.

I agree completely. And I've known some of those kids.

Dobson's "dare to discipline" stuff isn't about sanely setting limits on kidly misbehavior; it's about adults giving themselves permission to be abusive creeps.

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