No one to blame but myself

The overwhelming majority of the posts I write are simply stuff that I had on my mind when I woke up in the morning.  There is really no rhyme or reason to the topic selection... or even genre. 

Sometimes I don't feel like writing... or I hate what comes out on the page... and you end up staring at day-old crap when you click over.  [shrugs]  Other times I feel strongly about something and just throw it out there to see if it resonates with anyone else. 

But there are times (like yesterday) when I wanted desperately to hear what others felt about something that was/is a source of inner conflict for me.  On those occasions I dearly wish that I hadn't allowed my frequent ranting to alienate so many people from elsewhere along the political and religious spectrum.

However, as in real life, if you share your honest ideas and feelings long enough... you are bound to self-select your friends/audience to the exclusion of a lot of potentially informative teachers from outside your immediate circle.  That's pretty much what has happened here, and yesterday's post brought that home to me... hard. 

Back in the golden days of the Jblogosphere (IMHO late 2003 to early 2004), there were few enough of us writing that it was sort of inevitable that we would read and interact with bloggers that lived substantially different lives... and believed substantially different things.  And because I made myself part of their world on a daily basis, many of these fine writers frequently came to see what was going on over here.

But with the exponential explosion of Jblogs, many readers (and writers) began to gravitate towards cliques of like-minded folks and adopted the habit of checking in on 'the others' only infrequently (if at all).  While I recognize the folly of ignoring other points of view along the political compass, I am certainly as guilty of this tendency as anyone.

Without naming names, there were a handful of lefty (or at least left-of-center) bloggers I used to read religiously.  At turns they used to infuriate me and make me shake my head with sympathy (how's that for arrogance?)... but the body of knowledge I brought back from my daily visits 'over there' was an essential part of unconsciously balancing/modifying my own views and adjusting my own political 'rudder'.

Yesterday's post here on treppenwitz was nothing more than a bleat in the dark... a bit of self pity at my own stupidity for having  chased away so many of the 'other voices' and then having compounded the mistake by not making the effort to invite them back.

So instead of a balanced discussion on a topic that is literally tearing me apart, I got what I deserved... a discussion dominated by an extreme view from an extreme blogger whose long suit is expressing controversial opinions without much substance to back them up.  This is indeed a shame because with his fairly unique world-view and just little research / internal documentation to his arguments, this blogger could be a deadly debater.  He probably still wouldn't change many minds, but he would force a lot of people to perform that all-important reality check... something that few of us do anymore. 

As it is he simply ties me up in knots and presents easily refuted slogans... easy to refute, that is, if one has the time and patience to revisit the most basic points of the background material.  I don't.

Oh sure... I made a half-hearted attempt to guide the discussion back towards the central points of the post in hopes that more reasonable voices would chime in (some eventually did).  But in the end the discussion was hijacked by circular logic and unsubstantiated claims that were left to a well-informed lurker to refute.

Sure, I love writing about my life and my family as well as the pitfalls (or more correctly, pratfalls) of being a clueless immigrant in a new culture.  But as ill-equipped as I may be to discuss politics, the infrequent political discussions here have always been an important, perhaps even essential, part of my education and self-check. 

I miss that... and I really have nobody to blame for its absence here on treppenwitz but myself.

Just as an afterthought, I just found out that there was a whole different portion of the JIBs Awards voting that was postponed by a week due to technical difficulties. This is the segment dealing with 'Best Posts'.  It turns out treppenwitz has been nominated for:

Best Overall Post

Best Right Wing Post

I was actually a bit disappointed that Ibrahim's Mirror wasn't nominated for Best Left Wing Post so that I could maintain at least the illusion of balance here.  :-) 

Oh well.  As always, go vote for the stuff you liked... not just mine.