Blogging In A Cocoon

There it was, a post right there in his blog, one that I read regularly:

Senators Who Refused To Sign the Anti-Lynching Resolution

Then it listed about 20 US Senators, identified by party and state. To which, the blogger added this comment:

Disgraceful. Hmm, there seems to be a lot of R's on this list.

Fairly typical Republican-bashing, but wrong, as Republican-bashing so often is. So I set him straight with a comment:

According to the Washington Post, the resolution was passed by a voice vote so there's no record of who voted for or against it.

I provided the link and everything. Blew his argument apart, I thought. The blogger didn't respond to that, but instead pressed on with a brand new approach:

And why aren't they sponsoring it? This should be a bill that every single senator should have their name on as sponsoring it.

So I responded in turn, pressing for a response on my first comment as well as dealing with his new 100 percent sponsorship standard:

Are we agreed, then, that the headline "Senators Who Refused To Sign the Anti-Lynching Resolution", taken from xxxxxxxBlog, is not really true?

And what would be the point of sponsoring it along with ex-Klansman and current Democrat Robert Byrd? His name on it makes a mockery of the resolution anyway.

The best thing is what the Republican Senate did: Pass it quickly and move on to current business. Like trying to place well-qualified minorities on the Federal bench in the face of opposition from Democrats.

And I posted it. After a few hours I checked back to see if there was a response, but my post was gone. Thinking I might have hit Preview instead of Post originally, I tried to post again and got this message:

Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:

You are not allowed to post comments.

So I wrote the blogger an e-mail:

Hello xxxxx,

I thought you enjoyed the back-and-forth of political debate. Have I offended you in some way?

Best Regards,

Tom McMahon

No response. So I tried two more times, and still no response. So I have to conclude I'm persona non grata over there from this point on.

If you happened to see this exchange, there's no point to identifying the blog involved. This particular topic will fade from memory soon enough, and there's no reason to embarrass anyone. But here's my point: Why have comments enabled if you're uncomfortable with hearing different points of view, especially when you're expressing strong and/or outrageous opinions? I just don't get it. Now I can well understand having comments turned off, for a number of reasons. But why have comments enabled just to hear other people echoing your point of view, all the time? How boring is that? It would drive me to tears.

Like blogging in a cocoon.

Comments

[Paul Brewer]

Your comment seems to be back up, if I've found the right blog. I agree with the general point, however. For my own part, I also don't get folks who only read or link to blogs that agree with their point of view--being exposed to(and, sometimes, getting riled up by) the other side is not only half the fun but also what makes the marketplace of ideas work, to throw a little John Stuart Mill in there.

[Guy]

Obviously, your ideas are too dangerous to be displayed in his blog. You have been obsoleted.
(Reminds me of http://www.scifilm.org/tv/tz/twilightzone2-29.html)

[Greg]

Whether dealing with fact or opinion, being open to correction (facts) and persuasion (opinion) is important. Sticking fingers in ears and repeating "I can't hear you" is not productive. But you alreay knew that :)

I liked the "I must have hit Preview" excuse. Good call.

[Tom McMahon]

I've been blogging for two years now, and here's one thing I've noticed: The old posts on issues, and all the arguments that ensued, seem quaint as the months roll along. My reaction to my old posts is "Geez, I got worked up about that?" But on the other hand the fun stuff, the Mike The Headless Chicken Stuff, seems as fresh as the day I posted it. Which maybe explains why to-day nobody knows who Edward R. Murrow is, but everybody loves Lucy and Desi and Fred and Ethel.

The real question, the eternal question here is why people set themselves up for situations they don't enjoy, when they don't have to? It would be like going down to the Daytona 500 when you don't like loud noises. But in one form or another, people do this all the time. Why? Is this a penalty of Youth? Is this why so many old people with so many health problems still look so happy, just because they've figured out not to do this anymore? Ah, The Mysteries Of Life . . .

[Erik]

I agree that he shouldn't have shut you off for sure. Seems very strange. Then again, I got a similar but not quite as outlandish response when I went on blogsforbush a couple times.

One note though, why on earth is Byrd to this day chastised by Republicans for his distant past? Can people not change? Did W not change? Pretending that he is still the racist that he was seems silly at best, mean at worst.

[Tom McMahon]

Byrd is now like the kid you always picked on in grade school --- one of those guilty pleasures of life. He stayed one term too long, and is kinda nutty now.

Yeah, his KKK-ness is a long time ago now. But so was the subject of this resolution. The whole thing was a gross display of political grandstanding.

[firq krumpl]

I got a similar but not quite as outlandish response when I went on blogsforbush a couple times.

i wonder what that means?

tom, are you saying that this is the first time you've experienced this?
either you don't attempt to mix it up with the left often, or you have had an experience in doing so that is sure contrary to mine.

i see what you've outlined in your post as typical.

the willingness, if not eagerness, to have your positions and ect. challenged is far more often a trait found in the conservative. thus the popularity of talk radio. and thus the dominance of it by said conservatives.

[Mark]

Wow, I hope this is just some sort of error on XXXXX's part. I don't chime in much on his anti-religious/conservative posts, but I do like to mix it up sometimes. Gee, I could be next!

And, to be honest, I really loved reading your responses to his posts, Tom. In fact, it sort of made me lazy. If I read something political/religious that I disagreed with I would think, "Oh, I won't respond to that, McMahon will do it much better anyway."

I always respected XXXXX's blog (though I obviously hold contrary beliefs) because he didn't seem afraid of differing opinions. I certainly hope he hasn't turned coward; it would take away so much from his site.

[Tom McMahon]

I don't mix it up very often now. I found it was a waste of my time when I did it, for the reasons that have been said here.

There's more to Life than just politics. Maybe you have to reach a certain age to appreciate that.

[Mark]

Hmmmmmm...one of my comments was deleted, too. I can still post, though.

I think I'm on thin ice.

[Sha_kri]

This is typical. Liberals both do not want to engage in fair debate, nor can their views stand up to fair debate. Which leaves one wondering what their true motives are.

So what blog is this anyways?

[Woody]

I still engage in such exchanges over at marccooper.com , which is loaded with liberals. Their responses typically were things such as "get your head out of your a**, you're stupid, you're a klansman, I'm ignoring you, you're wrong but I'm not going to say why or how, etc." Their responses were so predictable, that I provided them a numbering system where they could pick from a list of typical responses and use the number rather than writing it out. However, after a while, they just accepted me and cuss me out only once or twice a week.

Now, which side is the one that is so accepting and tolerant?

[Tom McMahon]

I wonder if anyone has come up with such a numbering system? I'll take a look around. It could be a fun project, and speed up the 'dialogue'!

[Erik]

Krumpl, on the blogsforbush site, I posted a handful of times. A couple times, my posts were not posted at all. Other times, I was simply shouted down by a bunch of "you're a dirty Democrat" sorts of posts that rarely spoke to the issue at hand. I mentioned our Democratic governor Mark Warner as an example of a red state moderate Dem that would be a much better choice than Hillary. I was then told that all Democrats just want to tax us to death, and all sorts of other off-topic stuff. Oh well.

As for the right wing radio hosts being so embracing of all ideas, I don't think so. O'Reilly, probably the *somewhat* less far right of most of his brethren, uses all kinds of debating tactics, like getting people off the air before doing a self-described destroying of their argument.

Saying conservatives are more accepting of other views in general than liberals, well, it depends on far left or right they are. I don't think there is a specific trend there at all. Very convenient to think of your own side as the "reasonable" one.

[Tom McMahon]

-A Erik, you're always welcome here-B Sha_kri, if I named the blog, that would be Cynical-C Thanks to all who commented on this post.

[Erik]

Thanks Tom. I figured if you didn't want to hear opposing views you would have booted me long ago. Hehheh.

[firq krumpl]

erik if you prefer to use my last name, where's the mr.?

i agree with your take on o'reilly, though a better choice to illustrate it would have been michael savage.

i agree with m.s. on almost all important issues, but the poor guy is an emotional basketcase who is so rife with insecurities that he rarely lets even an agreeing caller finish a sentence, fearing that the disagreeing caller might slip in a zinger, or the agreeing one best him on a point that he'd missed. sad. the guy has so much talent and intelligence. i don't think i can think of an example of such extreme conflict between the intellect and emotion in a person. a case of emotional arrested development. i wouldn't have anything to do with him on a personal level.

i'm not "thinking of my side" in any particular way. these are my observations and experiences, not my mindset.

[Tom McMahon]

Should we have addressed the singer Meat Loaf as "Mr. Loaf?" But I digress. Actually, this whole blog is one big digression. But I meta-digress . . .

I tried to read Savage's first book, but could only get halfway through it. And it's not that long, either.

I'm not a big Ayn Rand fan either. "No grace notes", as someone pithily critiqued her. Rand's characters make most comic books seem nuanced.

[firq krumpl]

after listening to savage today i can't let my previous statement of agreement with him "on almost all important issues" stand.

most insecure egotists crave attention, positive, negative, doesn't matter. today he was trying desperately to get mentioned somewhere, anywhere, by anybody.

his most absurd proposal today was that iraq should be given back to sadaam.

the second was his oft repeated oil for illegals "solution". guess he doesn't get that this is a typical way that the left view problems and their solution. misdiagnose a cultural problem as economic and then throw money at it; in this case oil being the currency.

tonight and tomorrow morning he'll scour the media for a savage mention. pathetic.

[firq krumpl]

no mcmahon, it's meat to his homies

[Tom McMahon]

Phil Rizzuto: Wow, that boy really makes things happen out there!

[Tom McMahon]

I changed my mind, and I'm listing this particular site under "Sites I'm Banned From". Got the idea from BlameBush.

[james richardson]

the right censors comments all the time on blogs, far greater than ANY done on the left. you can read left-site comments that are full of vile, hate-filled and quite often stupid comments from the far right. some of them even post the responses themselves.

whereas the right, blogsforbush being a big one, simply deletes comments. not extreme, troll or spam comments, but comments they don't like, comments that go against one of the blogger's ideas, comments that bring to light factual errors by the bloggers.... THAT is blogging in a cocoon.

[Tom McMahon]

James, I appreciate your opinion but I don't think the facts are on your side. But I'm not going to delete your comment or ban you from this blog.

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