We must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately.
--Benjamin Franklin
I'm going to do a bunch of things in this diary that are contrary to established DKos convention. And there will be a terrific opportunity for a pie fight in the comments, if that's what you want to do. But that isn't why I'm writing it, and if that's what you're looking for, I hope you'll just move on and read something else instead of spattering cherry filling all over the comment section.
I want to apologize, I want to retract something, and I want to ask something of you. So...here goes.
As I see it, we're at a moment in history when we don't have the luxury of standing on abstract principles, however absolutely right and valid and morally correct they may be. Nor do we have the luxury of basking in the warm glow of feeling "right" while blasting our fellow progressives for having different opinions than we do, either, whatever side of an argument we may take.
Those differences are rooted in differing opinions about the strategic legitimacy of compromise and/or incrementalism, and, in many cases, disputed facts about what policies have been proposed or embraced by the White House and what the effects of such policies are or are likely to be.
Those disputes aren't going to be resolved. I honestly have not seen more than a handful of examples of people being persuaded by the comments of others in the entire time I've been here (since 2004). We like to hear ourselves talk, and we like to argue. Most of the comment threads on topics of current politics boil down just to gainsaying, gotcha logic, and the expressed poles of the issues listed in the above paragraph.
No, the disputes aren't going to be resolved. We are not going to convince one another. In fact, all we're doing now is infuriating one another. It would be great if we stopped trying to change one another's minds, since that almost never happens despite how brilliant and logical and high-principled we all are, but I'm not sure that Daily Kos would have many interested participants without it.
I do, however, have something to ask of you. Something hard.
I ask that you take the heat and character attacks out of your characterizations of the President and Congressional Democrats until November of 2012.
Rationale below the magic squiggle.