I can certainly go around my elbow to relate this post directly to matters of bureaucracy, and actually it wouldn’t be such a long trip to take.

The truth of it is, however, that I’m taking advantage of having my own soapbox and going off topic for this post. It’s not to comment directly on the Democratic presidential primaries of last night, though they do provide the circumstances. My comment is rather about the comments of others on the primaries. The overwhelming tone of the comments of people responding to posts on sites such as Huffington Post, DailyKos, Washington Post, etc., is vitriolic and puerile. I don’t believe that either of the candidates would give their approval to the sorry discourse that’s being flung about in their names.

I am hoping these folks are not representative of the electorate at large. If they are, we are in more trouble than we’ve ever imagined. And we’ve imagined a lot in these years of the Bush regime.

Daily Kos, at least, is featuring a post specifically about the bilious, even abusive commentary by people who favor one candidate or the other. And that post is the one that takes us to matters bureaucratic, as the author urges the owner of the site to institute some rules to keep such language in check–a request which takes us into considerations of organizational bureaucracy. It’s worth noting, however, that some of the other sites do have people reviewing all comments before letting them go live, so the question becomes one not just of rules, but of effective rules.

And in this case, and I believe on all such progressive-leaning (or even progressive-tolerant) websites, effective rules that don’t impinge on freedom of speech would be of great concern to the powers-that-be on those sites. I don’t think it’s such a hard issue to address, however. Not that I’ve had to enforce it yet, but my own rules for this site are to allow the expression of any ideas, just don’t use base or threatening language when you do.

The most heartbreaking and headache-inducing aspect of what’s happening out there in blog-comment-land is that there are so many people who think of themselves as politically progressive who are behaving this way. If that kind of knee-jerk, insulting, obliterate-the-other-side non-thinking is characteristic of progressive politics in general, then what’s the point of getting rid of the Bushites?

Here’s to cooler heads, respectful discourse, careful thinking, and sharing of ideas. I pray that’s not too much to ask.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen