Duck Season

Even though Nick is a bleeding heart liberal and I consider myself a moderate, we seem to make fun of the left much more than the right. Why is that? Is it because that Nick is in the process of getting mugged by reality, and that I claim to be a moderate to make my points seem more disinterested? Or is something else going on here?

Steve at BTD says one is a conservative if one likes to make fun of liberals more than of conservatives:

I am frequently confronted with a person who claims to be neither liberal nor conservative. While I understand the reluctance to take on a label that does not fit, I think the American political class divides itself into two large factions loosely representing "left" and "right." Regardless of the labels you prefer, when push comes to shove, most of us take a side. This is as it should be. As Mason said to Dixon, "You gotta draw the line somewhere." You can't just hang there in the middle like a philosophical scrotum.

I have a handy test for determining whether you're a "liberal" or a "conservative." It's easy. Just answer these questions: between liberals and conservatives, which group annoys you more? Which group do you find it most satisfying to ridicule?

I'm going to have to disagree here. Steve should consider Jane's Law:

The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

Many on the left agree that Bush and his supporters are smug and arrogant, and I'd have to say that many of his detractors are clearly insane. But it's definitely much easier, and much more fun, to make fun of "Bush is Hilter" than "9/11 proves we're right about everything on foreign policy."

This, of course, is not to say there aren't crazies on the right. There are. But at this moment, we don't seem to hear a lot about them. Sure, there was Jerry Falwell's saying that we should blame 9/11 on the abortionists, or Pat Robertson's asking God to turn Hurricane Isabel away. But unlike the left, the crazies on the right don't have much power right now, since those on the mainstream right don't pay attention to them except to say they're wrong. Bush had said that Islam is a religion of peace, rebuking Falwell, and we're not threatening to deport Muslims (unlike France). In contrast, the crazies on the left are fighting, and beating the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, for grass roots party control, and their presidential candidate, Howard Dean, was leading the pack until Wesley Clark jumped in last week. Meanwhile, they're screaming about all Republicans being liars, Republican plans of stealing elections with electronic voting machines (which strangely didn't bother them when the Ninth District Appeals Court delayed an election until electronic voting machines can be used to replace the old machines), Bush putting arsenic back in the water, Bush putting political opponents in prison (using the Patriot Act, of course), genocide in Iraq and Israel, oil, and on and on. Most liberals who don't agree with those points don't make the effort to disagree with those on their left, and those who do get accused of being secret-rightists or for it being a "schtick".

It seems to me that only a few years ago, when Clinton was still president, the crazies on the left weren't so omnipresent, and it was the crazies on the right who are foaming at the mouth about Clinton personally murdering people or giving away nuclear secrets to China. What has changed? Is it that the number of nuts on the left increased while it decreased on the right? Or that I have moved to the right in the interim? I don't think either is the case. Instead, it's probably true of the observation that the presidency tend to moderate the positions (and the supporters) of the party in power. When you have the option of either a) move the country a little closer to your side, or b) scream about the nuts on the other, most people tend to chose a) when given the choice. But the choice is not present for those out of power, so the best they can do is scream. Which doesn't make them any more crazy then their counterparts on the other side, it only make them more loud.

So, no, just because I like to make fun of liberals doesn't make me a conservative.