Lately I've been reading, and cringing at, a lot of Dave Blaska's "blogs" over at the
Isthmus Daily Page. It's fine and dandy that the left-leaning publication, for whom I sometimes write on a freelance basis, has a few more right-leaning contributors (I'm making this assumption based upon Blaska's
pro-gun, anti-tax, throw-em-all-in-jail stances espoused in previous columns). In fact, I wholeheartedly encourage the practice. But it does both sides and the moderates a disservice when the most visible opinions are so filled with empty rhetoric and name calling.
Today's Blaska Blog takes aim at the counter protesters, most notably state employees, who showed up to "shout down" the anti-tax activists who came to the capitol a little while ago to show support for the Republicans in the legislature who were stalling the budget process.
Let me be clear: I don't think drowning out the voices of people with whom you disagree is a constructive way to solve problems or get your point across. But I also don't think that opposing any and all taxation is a good way to run a society.
I've rambled on about this before, so I don't think I need to entirely restate my opinion that some degree of reasonable taxation is necessary for the maintenance of a just and equitable society. The trick isn't in raising or lowering taxes to absurd levels, but in making sure that the taxes are collected and distributed fairly, instead of falling into already well-lined pockets through pork barrel spending and mismanagement.
Putting aside the real issues for a moment, though, my beef with Blaska and others of his ilk are their incessant stereotyping of the fictional notion of a unified "Left."
Let's take a look at a few examples:
The [sic] afternoon Progressive Dane newspaper tried to spin the anti-tax protest as a bunch of Hollywood extras bused in for the event.
Americans for Prosperity, the group that organized the rally opposing the enactment of the compromise state budget proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle, is not from Wisconsin. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Typical Progressive Dane disinformation: impugn motives, dispute the provenance rather than debate the issues.
I'm not a member of PD, and while I agree with many of their positions, I don't always agree with their methods. But this isn't to say that I believe all PD members are the same, nor do I believe that "Progressive Dane" is a dirty turn of phrase. Blaska, however, along with a whole slew of more right-leaning folks around these parts sure do seem to think of it as a slur. I'm sure they don't appreciate it when similar people on the left make blanket statements about Republicans or the "Right."
Then we have this:
But the bottom line is that the state employees union could not have hurt themselves more if Karl Rove was in charge of mixing the Kool Aid. Arrogant, thuggish and thickheaded. They could not counter the anti-tax citizens with facts, so they substitute brute noise in an attempt to intimidate. That is totalitarian in nature, the polar opposite of sifting and winnowing.
It's the Soviet Union jamming Radio Free America. It's Boss Jim Taylor shoving the Boy Rangers' newspaper wagons off the sidewalks in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
It's one of my favorite underhanded tactics of debate: conjure up the specter of Communism and the Big Boss' of yore (or similar bogeymen) so that any argument made by the other side comes off sounding like a defense of those things. Plus, it should be noted, Blaska has not, as far as I'm aware, made any sound arguments, supported by facts and statistics, to support his anti-tax position. What was that he was just saying about substituting "brute noise in an attempt to intimidate"?
Blaska says he's a state employee himself, so there's some ground to stand on when he attempts to make his points. Of course, the invocation of Vicki McKenna as some kind of voice of reason hurts him more than anything, but still he, and others like him, have a great platform to put forth real ideas and try to improve the public discourse. Instead, he seems content to call names, make broad generalizations and skirt around the real issues (like, y'know, that whole "no man is an island" and "we need a friggen state budget" and "health care should be a right not a privilege" stuff).
So here's an idea, My Fellow Bloggers: try to inject some real content into your online musings. Better yet, try to then transfer that real content, those original ideas, into actual, real-life action. I'm fully applying this to myself--I need to do more than write and I know it. The first step that many of us are missing, though, is in learning how to have civil discourse with people who don't agree with us and not to lump them all into one identical group.
With role models like the empty talking heads we currently have on most cable news networks and syndicated talk shows, it's easy to see why the more local voices might be tempted to fall into fiery, no-substance rhetoric. But we owe it to ourselves and our fellow citizens to rise above that type of easy pandering. And we need to start holding public voices to higher standards: if all you can do with your payed platform is snipe, then you don't deserve the space. It should be back to the proving grounds with you!
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