In reply to this post comment:
Valley of the Shadow: The Post Plague Year Rules for Commenting, both for moderation and length. (I intend to post brief summary of this reply, and a pointer back to this full length one. So as to avoid a "mirror reflecting a mirror" situation, I will not post that summary here as well, even though that post will be moderated, too.)
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"Lead by example."
I could certainly live in a world where everyone treated others as well as I believe I do, but I'm pretty sure that
we all should lead by example, or at the very least, follow the Golden Rule, and treat others with at least as much respect and consideration as we would like to receive from them in return. I'm pretty sure I can't change the world all by my lonesome, and I'm not so sure that I represent anyone aside myself, anyway... (Surely not any group so vast as "Liberals," and certainly not "Democrats," either, particularly since, unlike you, I've never even been a member of that club, and only vote for them when there is no better 3rd party choice, which is seldom.)
My "stalking Blog"
Let me approach this from a different angle... The gentleman in question has posted screeds--in some cases, MANY screeds--about every author on
American Nihilist, as well as every person / blog listed in the AmNi blogroll. So I wonder why it is that his blog is not also designated a "stalking blog"? Is it simply that he doesn't concentrate on one target, and spreads his disapproval of others around more than we choose to?
As I said in my last comment, AmNi is kind of an "eye for an eye" endeavour, but the posts are generally in response to attacks, not attacks themselves. There are some exceptions, of course, but generally, the eye we take is in response to the eye we lose. My posts in particular tend to be comments in reply to posts of his, that I would likely write on Don's blog itself, if they weren't so dang long. Some of his posting deserves a full fisking & wider exposure than would come from a simple comment or two on his blog.
People, including the "stalking victim" himself, write blog posts in response to other folk's blog posts all the time. We do nothing different, so far. And if a person treats others as egregiously as does our fair "stalking victim," I see nothing wrong with allowing those bloggers who he has attacked and who wish to respond, to all post their replies at the same blog. You're welcome to disagree, of course.
And just as a final bit worth considering: Altogether, my AmNi blog has posted fewer screeds about Dr Douglas than he has about Andrew Sullivan, alone, in the same period of time. (And there have been screeds about others too, of course) So again, what is it that designates one a "stalker blog," and the other not, and are you sure the labels ought not be switched?
"I cannot be "above the fray,..."
I don't know that anyone is suggesting you be above the fray... *I'm* suggesting that you not attack children or offer excuses for assassinating a politician in return, which seems to be what you're advocating. *I'm* saying that one can condemn the individuals who do such things without doing them in return, and without blaming everyone in a given party or on a particular side for the acts of individuals in that party or on that side.
"Where are the people standing up for better rules of engagement to Keith Olbermann? Chris Matthews? Rhandi Rhodes?"
Many of them are pointing at Bill O'Reilley, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh and claiming they did it first, and we won't clean up our act until they do, which is a sentiment that may sound vaguely familiar. (And I'm sure that the defenders of Bill, Ann & Rush can point to those liberals that preceded them as having started it, and that those who defend those early libs have still earlier conservatives to whom they point, and so on, and so on, and so on...)
Change begins with oneself, not with anyone else. The only person one can control is oneself, and to point at anyone else and make demands of them that they must meet, before one will consider changing one's own behavior, is just no way to go, in my opinion.
"All I want (and have been wanting since December 12, 2000) is for my former party to clean up their own act before judging any of the Right."
As you so eloquently put it at the beginning of your comment, it is possible to criticize behavior and still maintain the ability to carry on further dialogue with the offending person. Person A's bad behavior is no more or less bad if person B also engages in bad behavior. It is possible that individuals in your former party are correct in their criticisms and judgments about individuals on the right, whatever their own sins may be. I don't think one should use Democratic party sins to excuse or ignore Republican party sins, or vice versa.
"I've already ofered the "how" to stop Coulter and Limbaugh -- no one on the Left understands, to stop them, they have to stop proving them right."
The issue I take with any notion that Coulter and Limbaugh are proved right by "the Left" (a monolith that doesn't exist), could be a whole comment in itself. Suffice to say, I think your theory is wrong, and that only the people for whom the bomb throwers claim to speak can shut them up, by refusing to give them any attention or status within the party / ideological ranks. And that goes for bomb throwers on the left, as well as the right. We, not the other party, are responsible for the demons on our own side.
"I believe we are all Americans, some with different opinions on how to make this nation great, but how much "dissing," am I supposed to take?"
As little as you give, I'd say... Sometimes one needs to reply in kind to individual "disses," but often it is possible and right to be the better man, and turn that other "other cheek" (by which I mean an ass cheek,) and walk away, to confront another day...
