The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

I’ve found what I think is a great example of what the last Vote08 post talks about.

& it has to do with one of my favorite subjects - food.
1. Read this article from John Schwenkler of the Boston Globe (unfortunately) titled “Eat Republican: How an organic movement born in Berkeley exemplifies conservative values.”

2. That article (perhaps it was the title?) raised the ire of one P.J. Glasnick of Newsbusters, who writes a response piece called “Gastronomic Baloney.”

Trouble is, while what’s called for is a dissenting view taking the podium with intellectual points made with respect, check out Glasnick’s tone: it’s the equivalent of throwing rotten fruit from the cheap seats.

3. Read John Schwenkler’s response on his personal blog, which really pins him to the mat in the rhetorical department.

I’ve seen a lot of this type of reaction from the right wing media before; the extent of their rebuttal is to begin with screaming “liberal, liberal, liberal” without going a step further (as, say, a George Will or William F. Buckley would) to point out exactly why the argument has no merit. This is a shame, as gives off the impression that the proponents of conservatism lack the ability to discourse intellectually, when in fact that’s not the case.

The impression I get from a lot of conservative outlets is that the starting point is that all liberals or liberal ideas are inherently flawed, & therefore whatever you hear come out of their mouths must certainly be wrong. [Of course, many liberals are guilty of the same blanket-generalization of their conservative counterparts.]

There is no such thing as a flawed idea; what becomes flawed is how that idea is put into practice.

I think it’d be far more effective to initially show a person with whom you disagree which points you both can agree with, & build from there. “Look, I know we both want to keep our country safe,” “we all want gas prices to come down,” “we can agree that the health care system in this country needs some work,” etc.

That’s not so hard, is it?

What do you think?

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