9/11 Theorists: Dying the Progressive Death

[Robb]

This seems as good a forum as any for this one.

One of the reasons conservatives are able to rally so completely around a cause is their sense of black and white; reducing every argument to a soundbite-sized thesis they all can get behind:

"Clinton is a liar", "Bush is a good Christian", "Saddam is like Hitler", etc.

It's the unity that is so compelling; the simplicity of the argument leads to a total lack of questioning, and a united front.

Now... getting a room full of progressives together is another matter. Take it from a veteran dinner-party liberal: the issues are seen in greater complexity, and with more shades of gray:

"Clinton lied about sex; but is that crucial to his job performance?", "Bush says he's a Christian, but what has he done to show us that?", "Saddam is like Hitler in a few ways, but here's where the comparison breaks down..." etc. etc. etc.

The fact is, it's difficult to present a group of progressives that agree on an issue; it's nearly impossible to show an agreement that even comes close to approaching the kind of unity you see in the conservative population.

I bring all this up, not because it's anything like news to anyone here, but because I'm seeing a lot of it in the discussions about the 9/11 report, and what may have taken place on that day. I see critical thinkers jumping off the ship of civility, attacking one another because of some particular nuance in someone else's interpretation. And the result is the same as I see at a dinner party when someone talks about their choice for the Dem nomination: bitter argument turns to animosity, which develops into folks ignoring one another's good points, much less appreciating the depth of their research.

And it looks terrible to the agnostic public. Think of a bunch of bigfoot researchers in a room bickering about shoe size. What does the outside observer do? Ignore the lot of them. Who cares if Dr. So-and-so has a zoology background? Look at how he attacks the entymologist talking about animal diets! What a bunch of loonies!

There has been talk before of an orchestrated attempt by the "right" to foster division amongst progressives by encouraging left-leaning candidates to attack one another. The same has been suggested about the 9/11 investigations going on, some of which I have been privy to, and many of which are exhaustive and impressive.

But such a GOP plan isn't necessary; if we don't wrap our brains around the fact that some kind of consensus is critical, we'll just do ourselves in -- whether we're picking a candidate, or picking a 9/11 theory.

(steps off soapbox)

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. Forget LIHOP, MIHOP, stick with DIFOM

Did it for oodles of money.