Why I Need To Be More Civil

Dean Esmay points out that the 60 million of us who voted for Bush are all called names here, in a post claiming lefties are more tolerant than righties.

I left this comment (which I am recording here, since she tends to delete them):

"If there is support, it's generally a statement of some rightie myth that's been proved untrue a thousand times over. And since I don't want to be responsible for the propagation of lies, off my blog they go."

Hmmm. That's odd. When I, a rightie, go to a leftie blog for civil discourse (I like Ara Rubyan's blog) I often find leftie talking points that I've found a thousand different arguments against. So, you don't believe my talking points and I don't believe yours. Even though I think what you are saying isn't true, I know you aren't a liar. We just have an honest disagreement over our respective opinions.

But if I stated my opinion here, it sounds as if you'd just call it a lie and delete it, because you had seen it 'disproved' a thousand times. I've found that many people can't tell the different between fact and opinion, and can't tell the difference between proof and argument.

Is this comment civil and rational enough for you? If not please give me some pointers.

Yours,
Wince

Clearly, I need to be more civil when I write about or to lefties. Hopefully I'll puzzle Ms O'Brien enough that the cognitive dissonance causes her to change her mind.

UPDATE: Here's my latest comment.

maha,

Name a typical rightie myth and give your proof against it. If you are like everyone else I've read your proof will actually be an argument (maybe even a good one) and a significant portion of your facts will be opinions (maybe even well-supported opinions).

Myself, when discussing with a leftie, I've only proved something to my satisfaction once. It took days and thousands of words, and when I was done, I hadn't proven it to his satisfaction.

Opinions are easy and everyone's got 'em. Proof is hard, and almost no one has it.

As my liberal Democratic Dad sometimes reminds me, "You know that isn't a lie, it's just a difference of opinion." And my Dad, so far,
has always been right.

Yours,
Wince

We'll see whether I can keep this up. Well, I guess I can't. That last comment was deleted. Ms. O'Brien's last comment was:

People, the topic of rightie pathology is not up for discussion on this blog. I'm not going to argue with anyone who doesn't see it. Your posts will simply be deleted.

Well, now I know not to buy or recommend Ms O'Brien's book, Blogging of America. If she can't discuss things with me, when I've put on my Politenessman costume in it's most polite mode, she almost certainly does not want me as a customer anyway. OTOH, considering how badly she's been burned by rightie trolls (and it sounds like she's been pestered by some truly awful jerks), let's cut her some slack. Maybe not enough slack to buy the book, but maybe enough to check it out of the library.