There and Back Again
I haven't been blogging. You might have noticed.
For about a week, I was busy fighting blog wars here and here. I should have known better. On the one hand the conversation dissolved into accusation and name-calling by a fellow blogger, and on the other, total nonsense.
It was so exhausting, I haven't had the energy to write more.
I learned something about myself and my blogging style, though: I am interested in the exchange of ideas. Numbers can be manipulated. In the end, ideology is what matters.
Get to the brass tax. Try being honest about what abortion is and its implication on the whole of society, not just women. Not satisfied? Let's talk about why caring about only women's health isn't enough. Call me anti-choice, and I'll take it. I believe in denying people certain choices. That's an honest position. Your turn.
Great, you're for universal health care. I don't think it's a wiser, safer, more compassionate path, but that doesn't assume I believe the "market can never fail" or that I am a "Republican schill." Quite the opposite, in fact, since I spent enough time answering phones, assisting on extractions and exchanging hugs with patients at a dental clinic for the uninsured (yeah, I'm proud of it; deal with it) that I began to question the health care system, too. I just don't think the opposite of supporting universal health coverage (coverage, coverage, alright already!) is cruelty.
Eventually I just had to walk away. I couldn't win either one. One, because she wouldn't listen to reason. The other because I wandered off track from my initial comment and should have stopped before the mud-slinging began.
Have you been there?
For about a week, I was busy fighting blog wars here and here. I should have known better. On the one hand the conversation dissolved into accusation and name-calling by a fellow blogger, and on the other, total nonsense.
It was so exhausting, I haven't had the energy to write more.
I learned something about myself and my blogging style, though: I am interested in the exchange of ideas. Numbers can be manipulated. In the end, ideology is what matters.
Get to the brass tax. Try being honest about what abortion is and its implication on the whole of society, not just women. Not satisfied? Let's talk about why caring about only women's health isn't enough. Call me anti-choice, and I'll take it. I believe in denying people certain choices. That's an honest position. Your turn.
Great, you're for universal health care. I don't think it's a wiser, safer, more compassionate path, but that doesn't assume I believe the "market can never fail" or that I am a "Republican schill." Quite the opposite, in fact, since I spent enough time answering phones, assisting on extractions and exchanging hugs with patients at a dental clinic for the uninsured (yeah, I'm proud of it; deal with it) that I began to question the health care system, too. I just don't think the opposite of supporting universal health coverage (coverage, coverage, alright already!) is cruelty.
Eventually I just had to walk away. I couldn't win either one. One, because she wouldn't listen to reason. The other because I wandered off track from my initial comment and should have stopped before the mud-slinging began.
Have you been there?
Labels: Blogging
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4 Comments:
We missed you! And yes, to answer your question, I have gotten so into outside e-discussions that I was too zapped to write on my own blog.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Total waste of your time.
I've been there. Many times.
How does it feel to have the life sucked out of you, like only these blog spats can do?
Ugh.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
P. J. O'Rourke was likely prescient when he came up with this one: "If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free."
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thomas Sowell got it right. What we have here is a conflict of visions. A conservative looks at the world in a way that is profoundly different than the way a liberal looks at it. A conservative looks at the world and says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"; a liberal looks at the world and wants to tear it down and build a new one. Except. You may have noticed that all they want to try, again and again, is one more variant of socialism, which has never worked wherever it has been instituted. They seem to think that we just haven't torn down things sufficiently to bring about heaven on earth, when, in fact, heaven only exists in heaven. Down here, we have to do the best we can, which usually means trial and error...and fix things on the margins. In other words, the conservative approach.
I'm with Ms. Neidlinger.. ya shouldn'ta gone there.
Friday, November 09, 2007
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