One of the hallmarks of the current American political discourse is ossification: you can no longer seriously grapple with issues, because to be seen even considering a possible change in thinking is a sign of weakness and betrayal. The initial responses to my last post on the radicalization of American politics in response to the Fort Hood massacre is a case in point: an anti-abortion proponent jumped right in to essentially disavow the existentance of radicalized anti-abortion groups, implying that I had said there were only radicalized anti-abortion groups. The comment cites the case of Abby Johnson as a non-violent anti-abortion activist who is being harassed by a Planned Parenthood gag order , leaving out two salient facts made clear with the link provided in the comment : (1) Johnson is not prohibited from protesting, just talking about confidential medical and staff information; and (2) it would be illegal for her to share confidential patient health information in the fir...

... and apparently many evangelical Christianists cannot. Or simply prefer to lie. First, the anonymity thing. We've had a variety of discussions on this topic around the Delaware blogosphere, and the upshot is that a lot of our most valued bloggers (kavips, pandora, liberalgeek, etc.) chose to use internet handles , while others (Tyler Nixon, Matt Matthews, Dana Garrett, John Feroce) do not. But there is general agreement here that outing an anonymous or pseudononymous blogger is, as BrianShields pointed out: Outing someone’s pen name in a blogosphere argument is the equivalent of calling an African American the N word in a verbal argument. Unfortunately, I'm not as refined as Brian, so I will actually use the N-word. Adam Fogle of the Palmetto Scoop has found himself, apparently once too often, the subject of Waldo's wit, and is running around South Carolina's blogosphere shouting, Nigger, nigger, nigger at Waldo and other bloggers who use pen names. Here's...

Not because law enforcement decided that a Sarah Palin mannequin hung in effigy as part of a Halloween display in Hollywood is not a hate crime; I happen to believe that's protected speech. No, the reason that hate crimes are a dangerous idea is because had the same display included Barack Obama it might have been: [Sheriff's Department spokesman]: Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said. "That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country," he said, adding he's not sure whether it would be a hate crime. "It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that." This sort of speaks for itself, and if you don't get it, no comment of mine will cause you to see the light.