Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The Value of Diversity

By

Alexis de Tocqueville is famous for his trenchant observations about this country. He wrote:

I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America.

He added,

In America, the majority has staked out a formidable fence around thought. Inside those limits a writer is free but woe betide him if he dares to stray beyond them. Not that he would need fear an auto-da-fe but he is the victim of all kinds of unpleasantness and everyday persecutions…. He gives in and finally bends before the effort of the passing day, withdrawing into silence as if he felt ashamed at having spoken the truth.

I couldn’t agree more. Anyone who has traveled outside this country knows that what passes for a diversity of views here is actually an incredibly circumscribed way of looking at the world, governed by an iron hand of generally accepted orthodoxies.

John Stuart Mill warned of the dangers of this kind of parochialism in his essay On Liberty.

Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

I’d suggest, just as a single example, that a big reason this country embarked on its current imperial effort in Iraq is because dissenting voices were silenced, or at a minimum not properly considered, in 2003. Tocqueville’s observations and Mill’s recommendations ring true — particularly here in Massachusetts which was held back for decades by a grotesque intolerance for dissent and enthusiasm for censorship. We should try to work against this at BMG by encouraging as wide a diversity of viewpoints as possible, bounded by our rules of discourse that forbid personal attacks aimed at individual members of our community.

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  2. Any particular reason?  I have been trying to forget that many wonderful, high quality posters were discouraged away from BMG recently. I was hoping for a gradual regrowth in quality, but the opening of the floodgates to flamethrowers hasn’t accomplished that, as should be apparent.  Why admonish those of us who are trying to stick it out and converse in the realm of facts and logic?

    • diary

      by releasing the illegally held British hostages, is it time to  shake off the distraction and get on with preventing them from aquiring nuclear  weapons?? No !That was what this was all about in case anybody missed it and now the Iranians are laughing  at the “weak” Anglo- Americans .Are the pacifists here now ready to kiss Iranian ass? On your knees dogs! Don your Burkas as your American “speaker of the house” has done before Allah!! American weakness knows no bounds as you send your women here in Burkah to bow before Allah!
      You are cowards and weak.

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      whole diary attacks on legislators are always a nice touch

      In Sen Jarret Barrios’s Blog he begins by saying “gentle readers”.

      What the hell does that mean?

      That, coupled with his now preaching. Yes, he was advertised on BMG as preaching at a church in Chelsea.

      Is Senator Barrios a reverend? Is he going to theology school?  Who is he to “Preach”?

      Any thoughts?

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      I’m not going fishing through the comments to prove that these diaries are emblematic of situation there.  You know that’s the case.

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      The RULES OF THE ROAD don’t work, Bob.  They don’t work. 

      • The guy is billing himself as a preacher. the “gentle reader’ bit. Is this a new persona.
        I’m sorry. But i will keep pointing out things that Sen Barrios does that makes me and others truly believe he is a fraud. Just like Romney.
        But it is o-kay to attack romney.

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        P.S. I’ll clean up my language. But that’s it. Barrios putsa himself out there and my attacks are reasonable.

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        he is all about show. I mean fluff.

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        Oh my, a pun. Should that be banned?

        • Though it may seem a tad antiquated, “Gentle Reader” is a salutation used frequently in days past. There is nothing strange about the term.

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          Try a little more reading and a little less barking, eb3.

      • While we’re at it, can I request that we also have a diversity of swear words?  I’m getting bored with FUCK.  We all know ASS is out, along with it’s original user…

        Wrong Stom  (0.00 / 1)
        My Personal life is fine. So fuck you for asking.
        …
        that is absolutely not true….
        btw stom. fuck you.
        ernieboch3@hotmail.com
        by: Ernie Boch, III @ Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 08:12:01 AM EDT
        [ Parent | Reply | ]

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        Who asked you, you self-important putz? I would like to know if Sen Barrios is becoming a Jesus freak. A born again Christian. What is it? He is preaching.  He addresses his constituents as “gentle readers”.

        You know what that is?
        That is fucking creepy. That is what that is.

        ernieboch3@hotmail.com
        by: Ernie Boch, III @ Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 15:32:23 PM EDT
        [ Parent | Reply | ]

        Well at least the esteemed poster attacked someone with PUTZ in that last one.  That’s much more interesting than just FUCK.  Can you please provide a glossary of more acceptable personal attack language?  Because what we have now is so arbitrary and fucking boring.

        • So take out the F bombs and I stand behind everything else.

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          Barrios preaching is a valid question. I think his constituents would want to know if he is a preacher. Isn’t that something a politician puts on his palm card if he is.

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          The gentle reader thing is bizarre. That is my honest opinion.

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          I meant what I said to my good pal stomv.
          Take away the F-Bombs and I still mean what i said.

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          So relax, I will clean up my language, but not my attitude like I said I would.

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          Darn You!

      • Senator Barrios has stated on his blog that current law does not allow for a prosecutor to argue at a bail hearing that the defendant was in possesion of an illegal gun when arrested.

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        That is catagorically untrue.

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        He took his time to respond in his thread. But it was more fluff with a passing reference to people liike me. (haters I guess)

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        But i cannot stand still and allow my country’s and commonwealth’s great constitutions, laws and court opinions (God Bless America builds to a cresendo) be completely misrepresented by a state senator.
        especially one who has a history of hogging limelight, acolades, and credit for thingsd he had little to do with.

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        Did you see he was the one that broke the news to channel 4 that the truck that fell from the ramp was speeding?

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        Not his job, yet he could not wait to break the news.

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        Maybe he or you or one of his fans can point out where he gets his information regarding guns and bail.

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        Signed

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        Your forever gentle reader

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        EB3

      • EBIII has been around longer than you have on BMG by months. He’s not the one bringing discourse down.

        • I disagree. He took the thread about the Barrios gun trafficking bill and lowered it down into the muck with his f-bombing and irrelevant attacks on Barrios. While he raised a couple of good points, his tone killed that thread — perhaps the first chance for the public to actually comment in a blog on a piece of legislation currently being crafted.

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          I thought that personal insults and ad-hominum attacks were not welcome here. I was the one called a putz for simply calling EB3 on his irrelevant questions from his original post. EB3 may want to know if Jarret Barios was a “preacher”, but it’s not relevant to a discussion of the points of a bill to combat gun running.

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          Maybe EB3 should stick to RedMassGroup, where one of the front posts isn’t about the merits of the bill that Barrios is proposing, it’s questioning his character and mocking his sexuality. That seems more in tune with the tone of EB3’s latest posts.

          • I never mock Barrios sexuality. But I do question his character.

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            I am so sorry you had to see an F-Bomb.

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            But i am glad you have something to argue because you can’t argue the facts i have given.

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            So tell me, do my F-bombs cause you to believe that there is strict liability for some criminal cases? Do my F-Bombs cause you to believe Sen. Barrios when he wrongly states that gun possession is not a bail issue?

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            Too bad nobody has answered these questions.

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            I like the RedMass Group bit. So, you think anyone who doesn’t agree with you, or BMGF, or Barrios is a Republican?

            • Addressing your last comment first, no I never said you were a Republican. But your comments on that thread are more in line with the style that takes place there, more insult than substance or discourse. His character is not relevant to the discussion of a proposed law, yet you raised it more than once. How do you get off calling someone “downright creepy” for using the phrase “gentle reader”? It’s a rhetorical device.

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              I don’t have any idea if there is or isn’t “strict liability for criminal cases”. I never commented on it. I did comment on the “gun possession is not an explicit bail issue, I think that maybe your disconnect with the senator may lie in the word “explicit”. According to his summary, authored by Barrios, Rebecca Edmondson, and Heather Friedmann, it says that it is not explicitly considered. While I’m not a lawyer, I will generally consider a statement made by a State Senator in an official document to have more weight than the comments by someone who just says “that’s not true because I couldn’t find it”.

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              I’m not going to speak for Senator Barrios, but again, here is what his summary says:

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              As defined in the bail statutes within the Massachusetts General Laws, a defendant caught in illegal possession of a firearm cannot have this weapon explicitly weighed in the consideration of whether to set bail or in a dangerousness hearing.  DA Conley and other prosecutors have rightfully expressed frustration at having defendants given low bail amounts on gun charges. 

              This report recommends placing illegal gun possession explicitly into the statute that defines the conditions a judge may consider when determining bail for a defendant, and in the statute that allows prosecutor’s to call a dangerousness hearing.  In enhancing these statutes, district attorneys in the Commonwealth can begin to use it as another tool to combat violent crime.

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              If what you say is true, and the law does explicitly allow for possession of a firearm to allow, or perhaps compel the judge to set a higher bail, then the end result is simply no change to existing law. So why are you harping on it? No harm, no foul.

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              If you’re alleging that the summary is false, can you at least give us more facts? I think the burden of proof is on you here, and even if you can’t prove a negative (which is what you are asking Barrios to do), at least list the sections of bail legislation that you searched to show us that you’re doing your due diligence.

              • of being a self-promoter who just does press conferences and big anouncements but never the work to make things happen. I do bring up his character with any issue he delves into because in his case it is relevant.

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                No other crime is explicitly mentioned in bail stautes. By mentioning this specifiaclly does it take away the seriousness of other crimes which don’t get special billing in the bail statutes? Crimes like rape and murder.

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                I will insult Barrios and deval and mitt Romney and Tom Reilly and John Kerry and Marty Meehan and Larry Luchinno and Sam Yoon because they are frauds. They will say anyhthing to anyone at anytime to get what they want. They show they have no shame. they constantly insult my intelligence. Maybe not your’s. They are not respected by most of their peers.

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                have you ever notice that barrios has a personal experience story for everything? And they are Usually bullshit.

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                For instance, during the gay marriage debate he spoke on the house floor and told everyone that a hospital would not let him into the emergency room to see his son who had been brought there. They said no because a father was already there. (Barrios’s partner)

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                That did not happen. Believe me. A Cambridge hospital? A somerville hospital? Any hospital in greater boston? Gay couples have been adopting here for over 10 years. But two years ago, months after he adopts, he becomes a victim.
                I’ll say it again, the guy is a fraud.

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                He has so many stories. And I do mean stories.

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                So yes, based on his history i believe barrios to be a fraud and therefore I question his motives in any piece of legislation he is involved with and I question the legislation.

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                Rememeber Barrios’s mantra; “Good headlines beats good legislation anyday”

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              • i gave all the factors a judge considers when making bail. I told what law book I got it from. It is clear.
                Just because you do not like the facts, that does not make them incorrect.

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                again, an example of fluff. a law we don’t need because we already have it covered.

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                Sorry to swear here, but once again Barrios is full of shit.

    • I would say that you have tried to silence my dissenting views questioning giving full marriage rights and conception rights to same-sex couples.  Or at least you have not properly considered them.  The facts I bring up regarding the risks of same-sex conception research  and the logic of how they relate to marriage rights should be met with more openness and less instant dismissal.  Oh, sure, people have thrown up various arguments in response, but it’s been more of an attempt at burying the issue rather than addressing it.

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      The dissenting view, in review:

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      Marriage must continue to guarantee the couple the right to have offspring together, using their own genes, in order to preserve our individual conception rights and prevent a eugenic society of gene-rich and gene-poor.  It doesn’t guarantee success, but it guarantees the right to try.

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      Same-sex couples should not be allowed to combine their genes to have offspring together, because doing so is too risky for the child due to the lack of complementarity in the genes.  For it to work it would require perfect genetic engineering, and this would still be too risky to develop and it would open the door to genetic engineering of other traits, again leading to that eugenic society.  It is also unnecessary and wasteful.  Same-sex couples do not need to be able to have children together to have loving families.

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      Civil unions that did not grant conception rights would be more powerful for same-sex couples, since those unions could perhaps be recognized by states that have banned same-sex marriage.

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      The federal government could recognize civil unions as if they were marriages much easier than they could recognize same-sex marriage.

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      The federal recognition of civil unions could be passed if done at the same time as a bill protecting marriage and stopping cloning and genetic engineering.

      • “Oh, sure, people have thrown up various arguments in response, but it’s been more of an attempt at burying the issue rather than addressing it.”

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        Every regular reader of this blog has come across your views more than once.  Not only do you insist on expounding on your quixotic political agenda at every opportunity possible, you now dismiss anyone with a dissent or deferral by claiming your issue is being ‘buried’.

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        Very, very funny.

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        Please, keep beating this dead horse,for sheer political entertainment purposes.  One day you might even make the Daily Show, if you don’t end up being one of those crazy guys standing alone in Harvard Square with a cardboard sign.

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        Oh wait, you’ve done that too, haven’t you…

        • A dissent would be someone saying “I think same-sex conception should not be banned, because such and such” or “marriages should not all have conception rights, some married couples might pass on bad genes or be bad parents and they should not be allowed to conceive children.”

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          I would think that as people became aware of Kaguya and the fact that same-sex conception is being developed, people would talk about it.  It’s rather more interesting than hospital visitation.  But because of efforts like yours to just dump irrelevant arguments all over the facts and insult the person, people aren’t inclined to look further into it.  There is a concerted effort on your part to keep people from taking this seriously.  Quixotic?  He was fighting against something that didn’t exist wasn’t he?  So do you see how your personal insult becomes dangerous propaganda?  Same-sex conception really exists and you dont want people to know about it.

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          Here, watch this.  I’m going to make a poll, like one on Blue Hampshire, and we’ll see if anyone has the stones to actually vote on it.  The one on BlueHampshire has zero votes, to a either/or poll.  How can that be?

          • I’ll try to keep my mockery down to the level of private amusement, but honestly, comments like the above do not help.

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            I disagree with you that there is some inalienable right to ‘natural’ conception.  In the end, a genetically engineered human being of any form (genetically ‘enhanced’, clone, same-sex baby, whatever), would still be a human being.  No one has a right not to be born with blue hair.  We may be born with inalienable rights, but now you want to extend these rights back to the glimmer in the eye of a white-bearded God.

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            Outside of what I would call an entertaining far-sighted monomania, I think you bring up honest and reasonable concerns about the safety of genetic engineering in general.

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            I’m honestly not worked up about Kaguya, though, and I think it upsets you that more people aren’t as bothered by this kind of development as you are. Maybe I don’t have the same level of pre-rational repulsion at the thought of Kaguya.  I think repulsion as a political impulse should not go unquestioned. Many people are revolted by homosexual acts (true ‘homophobia’), but theirs should not be the only or even dominant voice in defining the rights of homosexuals.  In many ways, I hold you in the same category.

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            Until and unless there is demonstrable harm to research in this area, you are just engaging in fear-mongering, not activism,  and should be identified as such.

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            • Well, if you’re saying people should not arrive at their position about genetic engineering to be consistent with a position on gay rights and homosexuality, I totally agree with you.  I assure you I’m not doing that, I’m way past the pre-rational phase, and the reasons to oppose genetic engineering and support natural coneption rights just get stronger and stronger the more you think about it.  But now you are probably doing that, you are being pre-rational and just being repulsed by something that seems anti-gay to you.  You are probably just uncomfortable admitting that maybe people should only be children of a man and a woman.

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              I think if you looked at the issue objectively, you wouldn’t be so callous about people that might have painful and debilitating birth defects for their whole lives, so unconcerned that they might pass them on to their children.  It’s not blue hair, it’s a huge risk of problems and death, and the manufactured nature.

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              I think also the reason we don’t see more people standing up and opposing GE and calling for an egg and sperm law is because they don’t want to be accused of homophobia.  Accusing people of homophobia is a method of censoring people (which ironically works by insinuating homosexuality).  Most secular bioethicists and watchdog groups are very afraid of being hounded out of a job and don’t want the embarrassment of being called out on the street as anti-gay.  So, good job demonstrating how to make ideas unwelcome.

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              It is not anti-gay to be opposed to genetic engineering or feel that people should have to join with someone of the otehr sex to conceive children.  It’s anti-gay to insist that same-sex couples aren’t full or happy unless they are able to have bio-related children.

              • I’m only in the position to agree with you or not, but I’m in no position to censor your views. You are still commenting on here aren’t you?  If so, you can’t cry censorship.

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                The argument about risks is honestly very weak. However it is clear that you want to prevent this even if there were 0% risks of birth defects, so I suspect that for you this issue is somehow about preserving the natural order of things against any hypothetical advances of science.  I have little sympathy for this impulse.

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                • I may still be posting here, but my point is that lots of people are afraid to come out against same-sex conception because they don’t want to get accused of bigotry or homophobia, which happens all the time here, even if sometimes they are just little insinuations, like here.

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                  The argument about risks is not very weak, there is enormous risk and it is NEEDLESS risk, and it is needless risk entirely borne by someone else.  Spending so much money and resources to create someone under this much lifelong risk is obscene and cruel.  Sure, there is risk to everything, but society is pretty good at distinguishing acceptable risks from unacceptable risks.  These risks are unacceptable.

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                  There certainly are reasons to ban genetic engineering and same-sex conception besides risk, but we needn’t even discuss them.  The risk of defects is too high.

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                  raweel, why do you feel that people should be allowed to do genetic engineering and try to create people from two parents of the same-sex?

      • Here in this thread are perfect examples of rules breaking, yet I see no evidence of caring on you part.  When are you planning to enforce the rules?  Look at the cesspool above this post and tell me you’re proud of the kind of diversity you are fostering here.  Diversity of thought, or diversity of vitriol.  They’re not the same thing.

  3. But what I do quibble with is the quality of so-called dissent. Often times dissenters will throw out misinformation, already discredited talking points, fringe arguments, Howie/Limbaugh/Hannity regurgitations, and often flat-out lies, and when they are called on it, they hide behind the mis-applied terms of “dissent” and “free speech”.

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    I’m not the best educated, best read, or most eloquent commentor here, but I do wish the “dissenters” would raise their game, become better versed on the substance of their positions more so than the talking points, find better sources to support their arguments, write in a clearer fashion so their theses and main points are unambiguous.

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    One notion in which I dissent from John Stuart Mill is his idea that all dissent should be heard (if I correctly read Mill’s argument).  Neither I nor anyone in the BMG community is infalible and we would indeed fail miserably as censors of “unworthy dissent”; however, when John Stuart Mill says:

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    But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.

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    I would respond that I would not feel robbed if I failed to hear the such fringe opinions that say Nacy Pelosi commited treason by going to Syria, that say that there are two equal sides to the global warming debate, that gay people shouldn’t get married because a bible prohibits it, and other such non-reality based opinions.  Opinions of this nature should be marginalized and ideally absent from BMG dialogue. If I were to retro-fit Mill’s sentiment for BMG, I would say that the peculiar evil of allowing and encouraging unsophisticated dissent is the robbing of the BMG community of rational, sophisticated dissenting opinions. 

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    I do not intend this as criticism of the BMG Editors; I realize that moderating such a popular blog situates you guys between the rock of “open dialogue: and the hard place of “cesnorship” and “stifling dissent”.  I admire the Editor’s patience.  However, I do feel if BMG evolved into a spot less tolerent of nonsensical “dissent”, yet a fertile ground for sophisticated dissent and even thoughtful polemic inquiry into progressive ideology and culture, it would increase BMG’s already unrivaled intellectual profile. 

    • I give you William F. Buckley, who has finally come around to my position vis-a-vis the global warming inquisition.

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      The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of The New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, “Sometimes you read something about this administration that’s just so shameful it takes your breath away.”

      What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited “government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming.” The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took a job with Exxon Mobil.

      For those with addled reflexes, here is the story compressed: (1) Anyone who speaks discriminatingly about global warming is conspiring to belittle the threat. Such people end up (2) working for Exxon Mobil, a perpetrator of the great threat the malefactor sought to distract us from.

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      WFB continues

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      The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.

      It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.

      To speak in very general terms, the United States is easily the principal offender, given the size of our country and the intensity of our use of fossil-fuel energy. But even accepting the high per-capita rate of consumption in the United States, we face the terrible inadequacy of ameliorative resources. If the United States were (we are dealing in hypotheses) to eliminate the use of oil or gas for power, would that forfeiture be decisive?

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      In striving for your beliefs, liberals have become the one thing they despise the most.  Religious zealots, but their religion is “global warming”.

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      As far a Pelosi, seems I was right.  “Olmert says never asked Pelosi to deliver message”. This is why congressman shouldn’t practice diplomacy.

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      The Prime Minister’s Office issued a rare “clarification” Wednesday that, in gentle diplomatic terms, contradicted US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s statement in Damascus that she had brought a message from Israel about a willingness to engage in peace talks.

      According to the statement, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert emphasized in his meeting with Pelosi on Sunday that “although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the Axis of Evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East.”

      • But I would not want to hold up William F. Buckley as the spokesperson for my side in the global warming debate.  In fact, Buckley states, “Critics are correct in insisting that human enterprises have an effect on climate”. And points out sans dispute, “The next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…will predict, e.g., a sea-level increase of up to 23 inches by the end of the century, substantially better than earlier IPCC predictions of 29 inches — and light-years away from the 20 feet predicted by former Vice President Al Gore.”

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        The score on refereed journal papers is still 928 that posit human causes as responsible for golobal warming, to 0 that posit an alternative cause. To debate here on BMG the very fact of global warming and then to debate whether it is of human cause is a waste of time. The evidence strongly supports the fact the climate is warming and there will be severe negative consequences if we don’t act soon; even WFB seems to agree, albeit tacitly.

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        As for Pelosi, you said on your blog that her even setting foot in Syria is treason. When you posted that, it was reactionary and rhetoric filled.  It was an unsubstantiated opinion based only on the fact that you dislike Pelosi. Now, the circumstances are different and you are still not correct on that point, or, at the least, you fail to support that claim.  It looks like Pelosi may have screwed up, but that doesn’t mean you were right.  It seems more likely that Pelosi handed her critics a gift with wich they could whip out and say, “I told you so”.  If Pelosi has in fact committed an act of treason, write up a diary and present your case.

      • EaBo, this again shows your inability to back up your sorry position with facts. You resort to the old canard of “the guys with the facts are meanies/intolerant/inquisitors/Nazis.”

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        Even if it is true that we are big meanies, that does not make your position any more valid. You have no facts to back up your position, and you’re complaining that the people with the facts and research on their side have little patience for those who have none. I’m sorry, but suck it up. I share the irritation of many on this board with the insistence of some here on clinging to plain falsehoods or red herrings regarding global warming.

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        People are entitled to respect; their ludicrous propositions are not. I don’t think you’re a fool, but your position on global warming doesn’t exactly prove that for us.

      • This appeal to William F. (Blowhard) Buckley is nothing more than a logical fallacy–an “appeal to an authority” who is nothing more than a pseudo-intellectual (he talks purty) but who is not an authority.  About anything.

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        Buckley’s only claim to fame is that he talks purty.

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        I ignore virtually anything that comes out of National Review and its website NRO.  Actually, that’s not quite correct.  I have laughed at them, ever since they hired the jackass Jonah Goldberg as NRO’s editor.  Jonah’s only claim to fame was being the vile spawn of Lucianne Goldberg, she of Linda Tripp fame.  Remember them?

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        BTW, Lucianne has her own web site.  I’m sure it is heavily advertised over at NRO.

      • The central question… is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes…. National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct…

        The axiom… was Universal Suffrage. Everyone in America is entitled to the vote…. That, of course, is demagogy…. The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could…

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        Couldn’t resist.

        • Francisco Franco was our century’s most successful ruler…. [H]e outstayed all his great contemporaries, friend and enemy: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill, Eisenhower, de Gaulle…

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          So the NR holds Franco in higher esteem than Reagan? WTF? I’d bet even BMG holds Regan in higher esteem than Franco, no?

          • If success is measured by time in office, and level of control then Franco wins hands down. It is not a validation of his philosophy.

    • The way I see it, the presence of a few recent additions to this group has impeded, not advanced the discussion on this group.

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      People are spending their time refuting Republican talking points instead of exchanging ideas that most of the people here believe in. Why should we have to defend the concept of any taxes on business, public education, the validity of labor unions, etc?

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      We’re wasting our time and they’re chuckling about it. If you go to RedMassGroup.com, they’re giving each other high fives for running interference. We’re falling into their trap.

      • It isn’t a question of having one big space where anybody can have an open debate. I’m for that. So, if we’d like, we could set up a third blog devoted specifically to cross-debates between RedMassGroup folk and BlueMassGroup folk. The point of Blue Mass Group is to have debate, frankly, within the Bluer side of things. That the Republicans have successfully infiltrated and distracted isn’t an issue of dissent, it’s an issue of what the specific goals (note: not rules) of the blog are.

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        Every comment we make defending, for example, the income tax of all things is a waste of our time (and, frankly theirs too.) It’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and frankly I haven’t seen anybody — on either side — be truly persuaded by another opinion.

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        On of the ways you can judge whether having dissent in a community is useful is if that dissent ends up convincing somebody — anybody — that the minority opinion is correct. I haven’t seen EaBo or center aisle or frankly anybody on that side of the aisle that has come into our space been convinced of much of what we’ve had to say, and I haven’t seen much convincing on his part. So this idea that somehow this is a wonderful open exchange of ideas is false because there’s no true dialogue going on here, there’s only people trying to talk past each other.

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        Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I missed it when Eabo said, “Wow, a state website had even worse problems than DP.com? Huh. Maybe I was a little harsh on Deval Patrick.” or “Hm, that seems really hypocritical of Galvin.” On the flip side — is there anybody Eabo et al have convinced of anything other than the fact that they’re annoying?

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        And by the way, I pick on Eabo because as far as I can tell, he’s one of the few Republicans that have recently come onto BMG that seem to actually talk a lot rather than just troll. That said, I still don’t think Eabo is a productive member of the BMG community because his dialogue more often than not distracts from the topic at hand, falls into Republican talking points, or just picks on Patrick for partisan–not substantive reasons. I do not pick on PP, for instance, because PP has been productive/constructive and has been around for a lot longer than the problems have been around

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        The point is, Rules of the Road aside (because as you point out, Editors can’t and shouldn’t be everywhere and it’s up to us to police ourselves), this is a question of the goals of BMG, not enforcement of rules.

  4. I won’t elaborate but I have a Russian friend who says
    “This is the second socialist country I have lived in”.
    I agree wholeheartedly.

      • an American born expat who has since remade his entire worldview over a period of time during the last five years.  The hypocrisy of what passes in this country as political debate is more aligned with propaganda and the business models of marketing than it is about issues.
        I shut up simply because I have no party and people dump on me for dissing major platforms of both parties.  The issues most are “passionate” about I consider mostly manufactured ones, manufactured by both parties.

  5. In the passage you quote, Tocqueville mentions “independence of thought” and “freedom of debate.” Those, not “diversity,” would be better standards for this group.

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    Toqueville juxtaposes those goals to a complex of societal mechanism that enforce conformity. Rather than congratulating ourselves because we allow dittoheads to post here too (which is cheap and easy), I suggest asking harder questions about our social mechanisms.

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    I don’t mean that “diversity” might not have value, but that it is really a means to an ends, having to do with the quality of discourse.

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    Keep your eyes on that prize.

    • In point of fact, this site does not reward diversity.  Because the site allows for what is essentially a “hecklers’ veto” it allows the children here to determine which comments can be displayed and which cannot be.  The children here already have sent two of my well thought out comments to Coventry, merely because they were too lazy to use their scroll bars to pass by them.

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      Diversity here? No.  Conformity, yes.

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