Can’t We All Talk Anymore?

I consider myself to be a centrist, a much despised political creature in an increasingly polarized nation. Like many centrists, I’m more interested in seeing politicians getting useful things done rather than broadcasting tribal allegiances on social media to folks that are likely to agree with me.

Most Americans, Red and Blue state adherents agree that the country is on the wrong track politically. There are hot button issues where Red and Blue diverge dramatically, the issue of abortion jumps to mind as a dramatic example of deep cleavage. There are however areas where both sides share deep dissatisfaction, but are unable to engage constructively, think of, off shored jobs pursued by organizations interested in cheaper, less regulated labor markets. The great swathe of American voters in both Blue and Red states would prefer employers be encouraged to retain American jobs and yet little has been done politically to reverse the loss of good middle class jobs

There is precious little evidence of the political establishment or media companies being willing to identify and act on areas of common interest. Why? Could it be that conflict rather than comity is more lucrative or just plain easier to execute?

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Let’s take a look at one tiny corner of the media world, Redstate. I’ve been a periodic reader of RedState over the past few years in an attempt to get a sense of the issues that drive highly engaged, vocal GOP voters. Let me be clear, I’ve mostly voted Dem for the past 15 years, so I’m not aligned with the sentiments of almost all of the stories featured there. I decided to use the comments section on RedState news stories to see if it was possible to engage with those whose view of the world is very different than mine.

I came across a story on Debunking Reparations where the writer, Jim Thompson, tells the story of a Civil War ancestor, Robert Thompson who suffered the horrors of imprisonment in Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison. Private Thompson survived the experience unlike many of his peers and went on to receive a small pension from the Federal government for his service. His descendent, Jim Thompson, goes on to affirm that his mistreated ancestor did not request reparations for the horrors inflicted on him by those who imprisoned him. Nor have descendants of Private Thomas chosen to seek redress. Jim Thompson goes on to suggest that since his ancestor did not seek compensation for his injuries, why should Black Americans be entitled to compensation for the wrongs inflicted on their forebears in the ever, increasingly distant past?

My original post after it was marked as spam. I requested the spam designation be removed. No response was ever received

I thought that was a fair question and unlike Jim Thompson, I’m not sure that Black Americans are not entitled to redress. So I posed a few questions in an attempt to understand how the writer and his readers sees similar but different cases. I started with the case of Holocaust family members attempting to recover artwork which was stolen or forcibly appropriated during WWII. It was a bit of a stream of consciousness, populated with questions that I hoped might spur a conversation that would give me some insight on RedStare views on the issue. Where do readers of the blog draw lines etc? You can read the full thing at the bottom of this post

This is where things get interesting. When I posted my comment it did not appear immediately. It seemed before appearing, the post was to go under some kind of a review process. Since I had other things to do, I moved on figuring I would return to see if any interesting responses would be posted to my note. Some hours later, I returned to take a look and found two responses. However my comment was gone. Apparently it had been tagged as spam, but not before two orphaned responses had been attached

Original post removed. Marked as spam

Now I understand spam. as being the repeated posting of the same content in an attempt to drown out other posters. Spam might also be classified as an unwanted post because it is abusive or untruthful. I don’t think my post falls into any of those categories. So why was the post removed? No explanation was given beyond it being tagged as spam nor does the site provide any channel to question the moderator.

Since, there were a couple of orphaned comments to my original post, I decided to respond to one written by “azright”. I began by observing that my original post had been removed and asked the responder if they thought my post was inappropriate? That post never appeared on the site, meeting the same fate as it’s predecessor. You can find the full second post below and judge for yourself. Another comment I posted on a different story met the same fate. Maybe fodder for a follow up post?

So what are my take always from this experience? I don’t think my posts were offensive nor fairly categorized as spam. So why remove the post? Clearly the content I posted is very different from other posters and stuck out like a sore thumb. In the absence of any mechanism to question the spam decision, I’m left concluding that RedState does not want a diversity of opinions, it wants an echo chamber with total uniformity. Is this the act of a rogue moderator or is it a feature of RedState’s approach to content moderation? That’s unknown to me.

Could it be that the site has no interest in diversity of opinion or ideas? Might it be that the site fears that it will become a forum for an exchange of ideas rather than perpetuate the culture wars of Blue and Red State warriors? Does this kind of exchange threaten the financial viability of the site, is there a fear that users will move on to an alternative forum, or is it simply that lack of uniformity is the desired outcome for RedStates owners who use the asset and it’s audience in furtherance off larger political objectives?

In the absence of a response, I’d suggest there may well be similar sites on both the left and right side of the spectrum that draw their strength from building an echo chamber free of diverging opinion. A safe space for those who want to vilify the other side and where opinions will go unquestioned. It’s a notion that I intend to explore more, but let me say, if my suspicion is correct, how does that help our democracy become “a more perfect union”? If anything, such a cynical approach is more apt to create disunion. How are we to solve the problems of today when media sites prohibit conversation? Can’t we talk to each other anymore?

My First Post To Jim Thompson

Nicely written article. Some questions:

Should the ancestors of Jews who had their property stolen or forcibly appropriated by the barest fig leaf of legality, have their claims on that property be upheld by the courts?

How many generations removedb from theft do you have to be, before redress is null and void?

If such redress is reasonable, does it only apply to material goods?

What about somebody’s labor? If I work for somebody at agreed upon rate, do the work as promised, should I be able to claim payment in the courts if payment is not made?

How is the line drawn for generations? Does a wrong of the past need to be addressed by the present?

Because most descendants of Japanese who were illegally imprisoned in internment camps chose not to pursue compensation, does that make future claims null and void for their ancestors? How does the confiscation of their liberty, property and ability to make a living differ from that of Jewish families who are seeking to reclaim stolen art work?

The horror that your ancestor experienced during imprisonment is beyond comprehension to the modern mind. Andersonville approached some of the horrors experienced by those that had the misfortune of being sent to Nazi concentration camps in WWII. What compensation was your ancestor owed? Did it occur to him to even ask or his descendants? Who exactly would they sue? The Confederate States of America government is long gone. Who else would such a claim be directed to?

None of these questions are easy to answer. Reparations are a rally cry in our political dialogue. They are a fist in the air for some and epithet to others. What do we know? We do know that the government of the USA accepted slavery until the Civil War. We know that Africans were kidnapped and sold into bondage to planters in both the Caribbean and to a lessor degree plantation owners in what is now America. We do know that these people did not have any choice in the matter. We do know that this is a stain on our history. We do know that the legacy of slavery and it’s ugly step child, racism continues to divide many in this country. These are hard historical truths for a country that prides itself on freedom. The only question we have to ask, is how best to expunge racism from the DNA of this country? What is the best line of attack? Is it reparations? I don’t know the answer to that.

What I do know is that we have a significant issue, racism, that has not been adequately addressed to date. What’s the plan to proactively address this ugly legacy so that we or our descendants can wake up some morning and honestly say, it doesn’t matter if I’m Black or White, I can honestly expect to get a fair shake either way. We’re not even close

My Response to AZRight

Thanks for the considered response. Interesting that my original post was marked as spam. As I understand the definition of spam, it. usually refers to the practice of inundating, blogs, email etc with the same material. I wrote the original post here and only here because I wanted to engage with folks in the red state world. I’d be curious on your thoughts on the removal of the post?

On Critical Race Theory, I hear a lot about that term these days, but how much do people really understand the concept? Is this just another battle cry like reparations? As I understand it, CRT focuses on the intersection of race and the law. I come at this from a place where I accept racism has played a prominent role in American history as a result of slavery. While slavery was expunged by the Civil War, it was replaced by Jim Crow laws which had as their basis a desire to treat the races differently under the law. Fortunately the passage of Civil Rights laws have removed overt discrimination from much of our legal code. Are there embarrassing statutes still in place? Probably. Many folks think this is done and dusted with the passage of Civil Rights but there is the problem of fairness in the application of the law and that’s where we have some disagreements now.

I think there is plenty of racism floating around in the legal system if you care to look. Many black men tell me that they go on high alert when approached by a police officer. The history of the community’s collective experience with policing has not been positive. That does not mean all police officers are racist or criminal. Nor does it mean that police departments should be shut down. It likely means that Black folk have had a higher frequency of bad experiences than White folk. I don’t see a lot of videos of white folks having their neck kneeled on or being shot in the back while they run away. I can think of two well known cases that answer to that description that most people can recall. So if CRT is being used to document and analyze these kind of problems, then I think it is a worthwhile effort and I think many Americans would agree with that.

As to lefty Dems, I’d likely be categorized as one of those in this forum. You can see from my profile that I voted for Joe, Hillary and Barrack. I think of myself as more a centrist, disturbed that we don’t seem to be able to have reasonable conversations. I certainly don’t see myself as a victim. Nor am I interested in making other people victims. I’m a big believer in self reliance. We might differ on how much help some people need to get there, but no I don’t think the Dems want to make victim camps. I live in NYC, likely one of the more diverse places in the world. We have our problems but we can’t afford to slice and dice like you suggest, we just have too much diversity to go there

Anyway, thanks for you response. I’ll be curious to see if this gets marked as spam as well