The trouble with semantics

It's an election year so the rhetoric is flying fast and furious. I admit I'm a bleeding heart liberal -- have never made such bones of it in the past, but I hope my comments here do not make any readers uncomfortable or that I'm insulting people or their beliefs. That is never my intention but I'm very aware that many of you who read this blog do not know me well or at all.

Because of the variation in audiences, I try to keep my politics to myself. I may occasionally go off on a rant on something, but in general, I hope I'm not being hypocritical here by saying current affairs stay mostly out. However, if you are looking for treatises on long dead English men/women, this is the blog for you.

All of this is leading up to the point where I admit I read a few conservative blogs and I'm about to stop doing so. I think it's fair and necessary to read opposing points of view, to see where the other side is coming from. I don't think it's enough to rely on one source for the news media, though I admit I prefer CNN to FOX News for obvious reasons. But what gets me about the few blogs I have been reading is the obvious dislike and judgemental attitudes coming back at me.

I read the blog of a person I know and respect in RL and was amazed to read exactly what she thinks of those of us with pro-choice philosophies (read: not pro-abortion, but rather allowing the individual to make the choice best for her without the interference of religion or other belief systems and believe it or not, most pro-choice people are individually pro-life; but our choice is not the same for everyone). To read the diatribe in the blog about Planned Parenthood, about the 'evil and immoral' pro-choicers (actually she used the word 'murderers') made me absolutely furious.

She's talking about me, someone she knows. Granted, it's her blog and she's welcome to use any kind of language, any kind of philosophical statement she may want to make there. But at the same time, using that kind of language draws me further away from her position. When she calls me 'evil and immoral', I have no desire to read further; there may be good points in her blog supporting her position -- I do not want to read. There may be more insults hurled in my direction.

Such language -- from both sides of the arena -- only serves to divide, not faciliate dialogue in any way. How can you possibly expect to sit down at a table and have a coherent conversation with people of opposing viewpoints have already decided you are the enemy and think you are 'evil'? Note, I'm not just talking about conservatives; we liberals don't hold back either when it comes to mud-slinging. What is the matter with stripping a subject away from its emotional core and talking about it that way? I've always said the world would be a better place if more people used bulletpoints; imagine how much quicker things would get down and how much less the possibility of insult.

So if you do ever hear me insulting another viewpoint, however inadvartently, please tell me. However, I still reserve the right to mock Brannon Braga mercilessly.