Akkam’s Razor

I read conservative blogs.  A lot of them.  All the time.

Part of it is about seeing what makes them tick, part of it is about gaining leverage to beat them in debates, online, and at the ballot box, part of it is about avoiding being in an echo-chamber where you only hear friendly thoughts and are never challenged, and the last part of it is about trying to find common ground.  Truth be told, I don't disagree with many of their "bumper sticker" declaration of positions.  After all, who doesn't want "Secure Borders", or to "Protect the Troops".  The disagreement usually occures in the gray areas - the details - the who, what, when, where, and whys that are the meat-and-potatoes of public policy.

There's something that's maddening about conservative bloggers…the lack of conversation.

Case in point, the Rush Limbaugh of the Conservative blogosphere, the Professor himself, Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit.  His site has neither comments nor trackbacks.  What he says gets disseminated down through the B, C, and D-list bloggers, repeated throughout the lands, yet he is never challenged, fact-checked, or rebuked.  Because of this, his followers can make the assertion that he is right.  Seems reasonable, right.

Then we move on to others, like Michele Malkin.  Similarly, she doesn't allow comments.  But she does allow trackbacks, but again, only from friendly sources.  Yet again, she is never challenged or rebuked, so her readers can reasonably assume that she is right.

We've seen this before - people who surround themselves with neophytes and yes-men, never challenging their worldviews, never correcting their mistakes, eager to keep the boss happy.  It might work fine in the short-run, but eventually, all those lies and distortions will add up, usually to a drastic correction.

We see it going on over and over again, regarding the budget, Iraq, global warming, the economy, and pretty much everything else.  And so what if the facts on the ground or reality contradict with the contrarian view points you push out.  Obviously it's media bias, or political correctness run awry.  Just throw out those facts and make up your own, such as Ed Brayton of Science Blogs observes what Conservatives have done with Conservapedia (cache), citing anti-American and anti-Christian biases:

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Science not friendly to intelligent design or global warming skeptics?  Throw out those "stupid things", and "create your own realities".

It happened to me, and it happened here.

When I saw Trekmedic251 of Is This Life? and later Wyatt Earp of Support Your Local Gunfighter selected as "featured blogs", I shrugged my shoulders.  There are a good number of Philadelphia conservative blogs out there - it's foolish to omit them from the online "democratic process".  After all, not everyone thinks alike, and I personally think the benefit of a diversity of opinions is learning from people different than you.  Unfortunately, not everyone thinks that way.

I read SYLG a couple of days ago, and was about to post that I agreed that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi SHOULD NOT have appointed indicted Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) to the Homeland Security Committee, hedged with the fact that this was a "politician problem", not a Democratic or Republican problem.   As I hit the submit button, I received a suprise:

Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be added

Frankly, I'm at my wits end.  My hope was to be a little Fair and Balanced, to bring a viewpoint other than what FOXNEWS and Conservative radio brings them.  I've failed.  As a country, are we so polarized, so pushed back into our respective corners that we have to block from our sight anything that contradicts our worldview? Why continue to deny reality, as observable by any reasonable person, rather than contradicting their own deeply-held beliefs? Is it the fear of being wrong, or the fear of admitting you were lied too?