After a bit more spatula-scraping (I know I shouldn't; it's like picking at a scab, but I've got that queer compulsion to wring something out of my brain), it occured to me that the reason I feel so disengaged from so many of the debates that are raging hither and yon thro' the 'sphere is that so much of what I'm encountering from the "other side" is, well...crap.
Sniping. Petty. Mean. Small. Credulous. And, quite simply, not worth my time.
As just one example: there are ten thousand tiny nit-picking points about Bush's exact, second-by-second behavior on September 11 that have abruptly resurfaced on various leftish blogs...there's even a site entirely dedicated to those Burning Questions. The usual filters are in play, preventing consideration of any factoid that doesn't agree with the fundamental Bush=Evil principle. The deluge of tiny maybe-facts combined with overwhelming insinuation presents the vaporous impression that there's a "there" there.
And by God, I just don't care anymore. Anyone who's gone to such exquisite lengths to further convince themselves of what they already believe is simply beyond hope. Good luck to them all, and may they find solace among their own kind.
I suppose I'm thankful that there are those with the time and inclination to bother countering the claims, but I don't happen to be among them. I think it's wasted effort.
There's a very simple reason underlying what the "other side" might regard as my appallingly ideological lack of engagement with this Most Important Issue and others like it, and it has to do with the grounding of fundamentalist thought.
For example: if you argue any issue with a sincere, Bible-believing, born-again, God-said-it-and-I-believe-it-and-that-settles-it Christian, you will inevitably run headfirst into a vast, towering wall of mutual incomprehension rising between the two of you that will put the big kabosh on any good intentions you might have had going into the discussion.
This is because of the undeniable fact that, unless you too are a sincere, Bible-believing, born-again, God-said-it-and-I-believe-it-and-that-settles-it Christian, each of you is arguing from a completely different starting point. Theirs is the Bible. Yours is not. It doesn't matter what the issue is: abortion, gay rights, public education, free speech...in every single instance, if you're persistant enough, you will eventually reach the uncommon ground on which each of you stands.
It's like trying to argue logically with someone who will not accept that A=A is axiomatic. Aristotle remarked that such a person should be watered, like a houseplant.
These arguments are pointless exercises, enjoyed by people who, in my opinion, make terrible dinner companions.
Similarly, I've found that most gritty discussions about Bush's 9/11 schedule, Halliburton, Iraq, or any one of a dozen other issues that might actually prove to be important if treated with proper seriousness and appropriate methodology, aren't really about the facts of the situation, or what might be best for the country, or what makes sense. They're all about Dubya.
Ironically, Bush has become the Bible that the fundamentalist Dubya-loathers base all their arguments upon. Their first principle is that he is a bad, stupid man, and from that tenet all subsequent premises flow. Furthermore, the point of all arguments grounded in that first principle is never to settle the issue at hand, but to convince you of the reality of the principle. It's a recursive process in which I have absolutely no desire to participate.
I don't think that George W. Bush is God's gift to America, and I disagree with many of his domestic priorities. Plus, he's a politician, which puts him two strikes down from the get-go.
But I'm so very bored with the rapacious need of the Bush-loathers to prove their moral worth through evangelical declaration and blinkered argument.
In November, we'll see if the rest of the electorate is as bored as I am.
