If you wander over to Memeorandum with some regularity, you will likely have noticed a sort of ideological segregation in terms of the manner by which bloggers choose to link to one particular story over another. Each time there arises some incident that would appear to be embarrassing to liberals, the “Discussion” section underneath will be filled with conservative blogs which have quite understandably latched on in an effort to perpetuate it on their own sites, and vice versa. Occasionally, one or two representatives of the embarrassed faction will have a go at trying to salvage something from the story; once in a while someone will go so far as to actually link to it for the actual purpose of noting that his or her chosen party is imperfect. For the most part, though, ideological bloggers with the option of avoiding a story they’d rather not have to address will take that option, allowing them and their readers to avoid having to acknowledge the flaws of their allies while instead concentrating on the other, more convenient flaws of their enemies.
As such, I would like to make the following offer to any conservative blogger who happens to read this: if you happen upon some story that is being avoided by my colleagues among the anti-conservative set, you may put your argument on your blog and I will link to it from here and address it. In return, you must extend me the same allowance each time you take advantage of my offer, which is to say you must link to any argument I decide to make and answer it at your blog. It does not even have to be a news story, but merely some incredibly brilliant point you have thought up and with which you’d like some atheistic and anti-Palinist opponent to have to publicly contend.
If you are a conservative blogger and would like to take me up on my extraordinarily generous offer, send a link to the post you’d like me to answer via barriticus@gmail.com and I shall do so. If I do not hear from at least one conservative blogger by midnight tonight I will begin executing hostages. Please send hostages. CEASE TRANSMISSION.
What about libertarian bloggers?Report
@MFarmer, Well, I’m closer to libertarian than I am anything else, so I probably wouldn’t have much to debate with them unless they’re of the sort who prefer the Republican to the Democratic Party.Report
@Barrett Brown, I’m not sure what kind of libertarian prefers the Democrat Party, but if you are challenging conservatives, I doubt there are any left reading here.Report
@MFarmer, The kind of libertarian who actually pays attention to what each party does in terms of spending and civil liberties, rather than the sort who simply accepts the GOP at its word that it is a fiscally conservative entity with respect for the rights of American citizens.Report
@MFarmer,
I was actually referring to preferring neither. Anyone who could “prefer” the Democrats is not very libertarian — If forced to choose, if neither one change, I would face the punishment of disobeying the command.Report
@Barrett Brown, I think a lot of libertarians who still prefer the Republican Party either think the Neoconservatives are a sort of blip that has peaked and will soon go away and/or they support Republicans like Mitch Daniels or Ron Paul and think there is a future for this kind of Republican party if only the Palin/Huckabee people would go away.
These sorts of libertarians probably see the country heading in the direction of social liberalism anyways and still consider economic and international issues to be more important. Considering the aforementioned view of W and Friends as an anomaly, and the near-certainty of cultural liberalism, it wouldn’t be outrageous that libertarians would place hope for smaller government and a less meddlesome international policy with the Republican Party.Report
Interesting concept, but I think some examples might be in order. What issue, for instance, have liberal bloggers ignored? What issue have conservative bloggers ignored? I mean… National Review wrote plenty about the Larry Craig thing a while back. Maybe it’s not the ocverage you wanted, but they posted about it.
Are you looking for things the bloggers IGNORE, or are you diving into their posts for specific questions you feel like they have not addressed in those posts?
Specifically, if given a chance, what questions would you ask someone at natioanl Review or the Weekly Standard or Red State to address? What issues have they sidestepped?
That is, let’s say someone at Red State takes you up on this. You say, “Hey, write something about Trig palin.” Not that you would. But for the sake of argument. So they write a post that says, “Andrew Sullivan should stop obsessing about Trig Palin.”
I mean, that’s ABOUT Trig Palin, right?
What I am getting at is, both sides have talking points. So just getting them to address an issue is not going to necessarily induce some kind of productive introspection or conversation. Unless you have some other sense of how this might play out.Report