On Demonization.

In an earlier post we mentioned Glenn Reynolds' statement:

"But I didn't let my disappointment with Clinton turn into a hatred of all his policies, the way that some people seem to have let their dislike of Bush turn into a belief that all of Bush's policies — and anyone who defends any of them — have become evil."

We think Reynolds has that exactly right. The tendency to demonize someone who disagrees with you has become all to commonplace. We first noticed it increasing during the Clinton Presidency. Not that it didn't happen before then - of course it did. It started becoming more common then it seems. Things like Hillary Clinton announcing that there was a "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" ranged against her and Bill. Then it just kept getting more ugly, more often. Both sides did it, too.

Now demonization has become so commonplace that only exceptions are notable. That's a real pity. We try not to do it, but we can't say we're exactly perfect, either. But here at Blue Crab Boulevard we've been classed repeatedly by a lot of people as a "right-wing" site. Which bothers us very much since we never did get that Official VRWC Membership Card we sent in the boxtops for. (Just another capitalist scam, we suspect).

Oddly, the National Journal's Blogometer classed Blue Crab Boulevard as a lefty site the first time they ever (to our knowledge) noticed us. So it's a bit tough to classify based on one post. Nonetheless, it happens all the time. We've had commenters who call us blind defenders of the Bush administration. Based of course on the one post they've ever read here.

The commenters can be difficult to deal with sometimes. Which is why a lot of sites have turned off comments, we suspect. When the Daou Report listed us as a blog on the right, we were hit with an avalanche of comments, many obscene. We had to do two mass purges of the comment queue. Which then got us accused of censoring the commenters. One can't win.

Then there are the commenters themselves. The tendency among many lefty commenters (yes, this is a sweeping generalization, it is not universal) is to use a lot of rhetorical tricks to actually try to cut off discussion. Not to say we are perfect here, but others use a lot of tactics that are listed here. Now the use of common propaganda techniques may or may not be intentional, but they are being used.

So, what's the point of this post you ask? Just this; we try to have some sense of humor here. Take a little time to look around and see what the place is all about. Read some of the posts carefully, you'll see that a lot of them are not ideologically-driven. Honest. There are some people we dislike, we try to be up front about that. Other times we may not be defending the holder of the office, but the office itself. Or visa versa, as the case may be. You will undoubtedly find positions you do not like, and some you will agree with. Just try not to demonize us and we'll try to return the favor.