Over the last week or so I've watched a controversy erupt within the Virginia community of political bloggers. It involved an owner of a Virginia political blogs aggregator deciding to remove a blog in order to remove an offensive image (a terrorist propaganda photo of a beheaded American man) posted on that blog from his aggregator. What followed was a drama that reflected what I consider to be a troubling trend in politics and political discourse in general over the last decade - decade and a half. People seem unable to distinguish the difference between an opponent and an enemy. In this particular case, nearly all of the people involved in that controversy are obviously Virginians who care about their state, their community, and their country. They wouldn't be bothering to blog about politics if they didn't care. They are people who all care about the same things yet disagree about how to approach political issues. Yet some participants in that controversy began to speak in terms of their political opponents as "the enemy" and using military jargon to describe their own behavior toward "the enemy".
Where did people lose the capability to distinguish between a real enemy and a political/ideological opponent?
Talk radio and trashy cable news channels, with all the hours that they have to fill, have created programming that has encouraged this way of viewing political differences, certainly. As have some columnists and web sites and, of course, blogs.
It gratified me to see that there were many observers and participants in that particular tiff that did seem to recognize that there are deeper and more important things we all have in common that transcend political, religious, or ideological differences. However, I was troubled by the few folks that didn't see that and by the tactics and pressure they applied to their ideological and political brethren to try to pressure them into taking up the same extreme position of viewing their political opponents as enemies. When it really counts, will these people be able to figure out the difference?
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Some people inspire loyalty, others demand it.
In the Vietnam War Era the flames of the “America, love it or leave it” attitude were fanned by the demagogues and profiteers in favor of the war, just as they have been for today's war in Iraq. That attitude demands loyalty, a tactic which is bound to make for lots of angry talk every time in the real world. As the blogosphere is a reflection of reality -- maybe a cracked mirror's image -- it has become yet another place where incivility is rampant.
But in that most recent Virginia bloggers tiff, from what I can see the loudest of the angry demanders have had their cans kicked down the road.
Rough justice? Maybe. But well-deserved.
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