Asymmetrical Information

Another lady blogger (Ann Althouse) that I read regularly noticed this too, and the opposite of Barlow's.....

Ann Althouse: my sad experience and a more recent update comfort zone of rage.

I think this is some sort of irony on the part of Mr. Barlow. Not being a blogger of any sort, I cannot comment further.

If it's not sufficiently clear, Mr. Barlow was making gentle fun of Prof. Althouse.

Not sure, but it appears you missed the point of his PPS. He was specifically taking a shot at Ann Althouse for a couple of her posts pointing out the supposed tendency of the blogosphere to react exactly opposite: Right bloggers link to moderates, constructively, in circumstances of agreement, while the left links to moderates only to disparage and rant when they disagree. His sentence after your cut and paste:
"I find it terribly, terribly sad, and in no way transparently self-serving."
It contained the embedded link to the Althouse complaint.
OK, maybe you and your readers already knew this and I am, again, master of the obvious. If so, Mia culpa.

Yes, it isn't obvious if you don't already live inside my head, which relatively few people do.

To be more straightforward, I'm not at all irritated with any lack of approving links from right-of-center bloggers. I think that's just the way of the world. Rather, I'm poking fun at Professor Althouse and the alleluia chorus surrounding the post that I've linked to in the last sentence. It seems to me that Althouse is starting with the assumption that, since she is at the center of political discourse, any asymmetrical treatment that she recieves from the right and left must be due to the personality and intellectual flaws of liberals. I think that the asymmetrical treatment is better explained by the perception that she's a moderate conservative, and I'd point to her self-placement in the Conservative Blog Advertising Network and her pleasure at being named a Conservative Blog Diva as evidence.

Many thanks for the kind words, Jane. Right back atcha.

Yes, she is typical of those many conservatives who support gay marriage and abortion rights.

What Mr. Barlow seems to have missed is the higher level irony produced when (contra his post) several "right-wing" bloggers have linked to his post in an approving fashion. Seems to me that Mr. Barlow has done Ms. Althouse a favor by creating a data point which supports her hypothesis.

But then, it's long been obvious that the libertarian right tends to be more polite and less vulgar than the commentary one tends to find on the left.

And of course, the point Ms. Althouse and Stephen Green were both making was that they are closer in many ways to Democratic positions than they are to Republican positions, but much of the left seems determined to ridicule (a Crooked Timber speciality) or swear at them, rather than to engage and attempt to persuade.

Regards,
Neil

What Althouse is doing with her posts is highlighting the self-destructive tendencies of the lefty blogsphere in contrast to the coalition building tendencies of the righty blogsphere.

Ann Althouse is not "of the right," she is mostly left-of-center in her positions. For that matter neither is Glenn Reynolds a righty, as a libertarian some of his positions are favored by Republicans and some by Democrats. Both are part of the "mushy middle" of the electorate, i.e. neither yellow-dog Democrats nor yellow-dog Republicans but voters who choose a candidate on an election-by -election basis.

What Althouse has pointed out is that bloggers to her right tend to highlight areas of agreement while bloggers to her left tend to highlight areas of disagreement. In effect righty bloggers are saying "we agree about A, B and C. Vote for my guy!" While lefty bloggers are saying "we disagree about D, E, and F. I'd rather lose than have you vote for my guy!"

Left wing bloggers fail the "know your enemy" test. Hugh Hewitt is a right winger, Lilecks is a moderate right winger, people, like Althouse, who like to quote ancient feminist bromides approvingly are not right wingers.

This is the Rovian strategy in a nutshell. Play to the Republican base in hopes of provoking Democrats to play to their base while confident that the right wing base will be significantly less obnoxious to people in the middle than the left wing base.

In my little ultra-liberal town, I have noticed the same thing. The repubs tend to be more conversational while the dems tend to be more condemning and disapproving. In fact, the leftists here can be so obnoxious that they automatically denigrate ANY hint of normalism if it doesn't agree with their viewpoint. As is said here, there is plenty of diversity of viewpoint, from the Greens on the far left to the Democrats on the far right. That puts me, as a social moderate but fiscal conservative liberatarian type at the ultra ultra right in their viewpoint. I use a pseudonymn because of the very real probable repercussions to my business. It's unfortunate that the dems don't realize that most of us want to achieve the same goals for the people of this country as they do, but we differ in how we seek to achieve those goals. We believe in teaching people how to fish so they can take care of themselves*, while they believe in giving people fish.

*And sometimes to hell with those who won't bother to take care of themselves.

I'll say it again; politics is mostly aesthetics, not morality or economics. Everyone, no matter where they sit, thinks the other side is rude, and I have posts to prove it!

I've lived in deep-red small towns that you've never heard of, and Berkeley and NYC. I can't identify either side as being more rude than the other on the average. Good folks on both sides; flaming pricks on both sides. (To those saying liberals are more kneejerk and disproving - go talk to rank and file evangelicals for a while. flash points are on different topics, of course, but the level of intolerance, from the view of this rather extreme libertarian, looks about the same.)

"Ann Althouse is not "of the right," she is mostly left-of-center in her positions. For that matter neither is Glenn Reynolds a righty, as a libertarian some of his positions are favored by Republicans and some by Democrats. Both are part of the "mushy middle" of the electorate, i.e. neither yellow-dog Democrats nor yellow-dog Republicans but voters who choose a candidate on an election-by -election basis."

I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for a democrat. Never ever. Its difficult to call someone like this a true moderate. Moderates switch parties. Conservative moderates are republicans. You are fooling yourself if you think they decide on a case by case basis to vote democrat or repub. They are probably fooling themselves too.

I think Kos correctly identifies Ann as his enemy, one that is much more reasonable and kindly, but probably more dangerous to the potential for a democratic victory as a result. He's just calling her bluff, thats all, and wants to make it clear where she stands. Why should Kos capitulate to a person like this? It serves no purpose whatsoever, not for Kos. Its similar to the reason Limbaugh doensn't ever credit the democrats with anything positive, even when they have a position he would support. It doesn't ever suit his overall battle.

I don't know why you all expect Kos to be some type of resonable person, when his function within the larger party is to be the flamethrower. You are completely confused when he sometimes sounds reasonable to you. Its the nature of persuation, my friends. How can one person say this, and this?

What I don't think any of you understand, even in the slightest, is that there are as many of reasonable democrats who would vote republican as there are repubs that would vote democratic, but just can't due to the sheer offensiveness of much of the modern republican party. As long as you insulate yourselves from the truly horrifying aspects of the party, you wont understand.

I could vote republican, I like smaller govt and lower taxes. I like family values. I like capitalism. I just don't believe in lower taxes at all costs, or the crony capitalism that we lean to today, or the sheer promotion of rent seeking behavior over capital forming behavior. I don't like it when winterspeak gives the same arguements as racists, providing cover for them. I don't like it when Jane can't criticize the republican party without a huge backlash from her readers, who I can assure you are far, far more tolerant than most of the right. I don't like the justification of Bush's behavior at all costs, like when Bob Barr is greeted with silence for critizing the administration.

I think the quote from Barlow above gets to the heart of the matter. Anns a huge republican, one that is snarky and dismissive of democrats, even when she agrees with them. Its amazing how tolerant people who agree with me are, isn't it? And those people who don't agree with me, aren't they jerks?

George Carlin:

Ever notice how anyone who drives faster than you is a f**king maniac and anyone who drives slower than you is a f**king asshole?

Seems strangely appropo this thread.

Russ

Mick says:

I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for a democrat.

I don't think that's true. I doubt either one of them would vote for Nancy Pelosi if she were running in one of their states, but I wouldn't be shocked to see either one voting for Joe Lieberman. In fact, in Glenn's case, we'll have an interesting test case coming up: Harold Ford, Jr., a Blue Dog Democrat, is running for Frist's seat. I'm curious to see what IP's take on that race is.

Anyway, my point is, I would agree with you if you changed your observation to: "I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for an extreme, move-on-style democrat."

Wiz,

Both Ann and Glen already have had an opportunity to vote for Joe. I wonder if they did?

Mickslam says:

I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for a democrat.

That must be why Ann says, in a recent post:

I've been a registered Democrat since I first started to vote, in 1972. I can count on one hand the Republicans I've voted for in my life, for any office. And that's giving a separate finger to Cheney.

Yeah, there's a woman who'll never vote for a Democrat. I'd bet -- fearlessly -- that Ann Althouse has voted for a lot more Democrats in her life than, say, Ted Barlow has Republicans, even adjusting for age differences.

Mickslam says:

I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for a democrat. Never ever.

So you're proposing that Reynolds worked for Gore's campaign in 1988, but voted Republican that year?

Not that Glenn or Ann need anyone to defend them, but it's only fair to point out that Glenn has claimed several times to have worked in Al Gore's original presidential campaign. One doubts he would do that if he'd never vote for a Democrat.

More interesting to me is the question of how certain many of us are about how people we've never met feel about the issues of the day. micslam, I'd bet, has never met Ann or Glenn, yet he's certain he knows how they vote. Yet, it would appear, he's not been a very good reader of their blogs, or he'd at least know his opinion differs from what their claims.

Why is it we are so sure we know people we've never met so well? You see doctors on TV diagnose people they've never examined with certainty. Yet, the same doctors would never prescribe medicine or a course of treatment for one of their own patients without first doing an exam.

Well, Mick, you make an interesting point, albeit not the one you hoped for: A clear demonstration of how a person presuming to observe from a centrist position can speak partisanship by overlooking a few key facts.

Central to this bickering is the question, why are small-l libertarians like Glenn and Ann and so many of us associated with the Republican party (rightly or wrongly in terms of who we tend to bote for)? Two reasons, I think:

1) While both sides have their barking moonbats, the left liberals seem to read the libertarian websites/blogs more than the denizens of the far right, so libertarians get more treatment as "other" from the left.

2) The underlying philosophy or worldview of liberals is untenable to libertarians, and so there is created a feeling of kinship with the Republicans by default. I speak of what Sowell describes in some of his books, most notably "A Conflict of Visions." Left-liberals, to use coarse language I don't have time to smooth out, need villains as explanations for why things aren't wonderful for everyone, and don't want to concede that the world is a fundamentally inhospitable place, that we aren't noble savages, that even in the cushiest era in which to be alive in the history of history, people usually have to work very hard for things like security. I know this gets liberals pissed off, but I really think that's why libertarians, who agree with the left on most issues, tend to be associated with the right. Discuss, or ignore.

"I don't think Glenn or Ann will ever vote for a democrat. Never ever."

You don't read my blog do you? I've been a registered Democrat since 1972. I voted for Gore, Clinton (twice), Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, McGovern. I've voted for Russ Feingold repeatedly (and even given him hundreds of dollars in campaign contributions). I don't think I've ever voted for a Republican for Senator.But I did vote for Bush in '04, so I'm an inveterate right-winger!

Ah, I get the same thing on my blog. It's just smaller scale. I write a nice piece News Corp.'s internet strategy, I get bupkes.

I post a picture of myself from 1989, looking like Napoleon Dynamite, everybody and their mom has a snide comment to make.

Central to this bickering is the question, why are small-l libertarians like Glenn and Ann and so many of us associated with the Republican party?

Because the Democrats aren't serious about national security.

I'm confused. I got that Klieman was poking fun of Althouse's post, but then Galt seemed to take Klieman's post at face value. Is she (Galt) doing so to continue the jab at Althouse's post, or because she didn't realize it was a jab, or that it was a jab but still a serious topic? And are the commenters serious or joking, and if joking, are they joking because they agree or because they disagree? etc.

Tina-

I don't think that's it. The divide's been around long before 9/11 and national security wasn't on people's minds much for the decade before that. Sure, Instapundit and others say that's a big issue, and for now it is, but in general, I think the fundamental philosophical divide keeps the socially liberal, economically conservative, leave-people-alone crowd associated with the Right, and it's not all grounded in not automatically thinking the government should be looked to for the solution to our problems.

This is a very interesting discussing. I think that most of the people I know who were moderate conservative/libertarian honestly believed that the Republicans stood for smaller government, less government intervention, and generally a better concept of foreign policy. I remember debating Jane Galt herself before the 2004 election on which party would actually put justices on the court that would uphold our civil rights or limit them and I think we determined that it depends WHICH civil rights you personally felt was more important (which is a somewhat scary thought).

Anyway, what I consistently find fascinating is that most of the libertarians/moderate conservatives I know now understand that the Republican Party seems to have been hijacked by the religious right and big-government, deficit spending social conservatives. A friend of mine, who is a lifelong Republican, has expressed to me how much he loathes President Bush and the current machine in place because this is not his Republican party. The current batch of Republicans spit in the face of Barry Goldwater style Republicans.

That said I don't understand "moderates" or "libertarians" who seem to think that President Bush's actions, which fly in the face of virtually everything most of these people stand for, are somehow still okay. I am baffled at the extent that the benefit of the doubt is given to this administration, over and over and over.

I read Jane, Kleinman, and Daniel Drezner, among other moderates, because, although I often don't agree with them, they are intellectually honest. They are not apologists for this administration. Conversely Intsapundit and (apologies Professor Althouse who is reading this thread, I mean no disrespect) Ann Althouse, seem to be intellectually dishonest to me. “I worked for Gore 18 years ago!” or “I mostly vote for democrats!” I don’t care and it doesn’t impress me. I would have no problem if these people would admit to being arch conservatives, but to claim to be middle of the road or libertarian and yet ignore the repeated problems of this administration and every action they take which conflicts with your own personal views is fairly despicable.

Now, if someone like Ms. Althouse (whom I do not read regularly) actually has the inclination to criticize the actions of this administration, I find that noteworthy, given that my limited experience with her work shows her to be not much more than a Bush Administration apologist. Given that, I think we should encourage this intellectual honesty. It’s also very telling when someone who IS a Bush Administration apologist takes a swipe at this administration. It shows that maybe we liberals aren’t as wacky as some conservatives claim.

Kate,

What I haven't seen are any signs that the administration has been hijacked by the religious right. As an atheist/agnostic/deist (depending on the day of the week and my mood, I guess), I don't understand or care for the attraction of religion, but I haven't seen any signs. What I have seen is an attempt to regain the founding fathers' viewpoint on religion, which was to prevent a state religion, and not to prevent ANY government entanglement with religion no matter what. Faith based initiatives seem like a good thing to me, not because religion is part of it, but because they are so effective. Whether I care for religion or not is beside the point; so many other people derive deep satisfaction from their religious beliefs that it would be foolish to wall off religion (per se, or religion qua religion) from government.

But I'll certainly grant you the point about big spending social conservatives, but I take some solace in the fact that the democrats would be spending even more. Recall that Ted Kennedy voted against the Medicare drug benefit because it didn't go far enough!

I would have no problem if these people would admit to being arch conservatives, but to claim to be middle of the road or libertarian and yet ignore the repeated problems of this administration and every action they take which conflicts with your own personal views is fairly despicable.

What kind of "expression of disagreements" would placate you on that point? I don't read Althouse much, so I cannot comment on her work one way or the other, but I suggest that a more careful reading of Glenn Reynolds would be in order.

First, he has expressed disagreements with the Bush Administration on many issues, social especially. What he doesn't appear to possess is any kind of personal vendetta against Bush and thus he rarely tries to make points of disagreement with a razor-studded sledgehammer. This may make a position harder to detect in a casual reading, but an ability to keep things impersonal, and the associated civility, is a virtue.

Second, social issues are one thing; national defense is something else. If I recall correctly, he believes the Gulf II war effort was necessary and that the Democrats had no credible answer as to how it can be concluded in the last election cycle. In fact, save for a few such as Lieberman, the general Democratic postion has been "either you oppose it, or you're against us" -- not exactly a good approach for drawing out the moderates.

The problem is not that Glenn Reynolds or others of his ilk are "arch conservative"; that's a lot of projection on your part, in fact. The problem is that the popular voices of the left have made themselves so odious and/or ridiculous in these two areas that reasonable voices are either drowned out, or driven away from (but not automatically "away to", as you seem to have it).

I would have no problem if these people would admit to being arch conservatives, but to claim to be middle of the road or libertarian and yet ignore the repeated problems of this administration and every action they take which conflicts with your own personal views is fairly despicable.

Others have already pointed out that Althouse and Reynolds cannot reasonably be called "arch-conservative"; both regularly criticize Bush, and both hold liberal or libertarian positions on numerous issues.

I just want to point out that one of the reasons they don't devote time to the endless Bush-bashing that the leftie blogs love so much is that it is *pointless*. Bush is President through 2008 whether you hate him or not. He'll be gone forever after that, whether you love him or not.

Now certainly there is a lot of value in *constructive* criticism of the Bush administration, and indeed people like Reynolds and Althouse do engage in such criticism regularly. But such criticism is almost unheard of on the left; it is easy to find 20,000-word dissertations on how Bush Lied And People Died, but just try finding an actual strategy for stabilizing Iraq and you'll be searching for a long, long time.

Speaking as a moderate Democrat who voted for his first Republican in '04, it comes down to this--I can't vote for the party of Michael Moore. Give me a viable alternative and I'll come back to the fold. What I see though are potential moderate candidates being crucified by Kos kids. Not likely I'll be back anytime soon.

Let me add a bit of personal experience to this discussion. Last fall, I mocked one of the Crooked Timberites, Daniel Davies, for using obscenity pointlessly in a post.

Davies replied with an attack on me that was obscene, scatalogical, slanderous in the ordinary meaning of the word, and perhaps legally. I sent an email to the other contributors to the site asking them to intervene, pointing out that it discredited their site. None even replied.

So, when I read this post by Ted Barlow, I am more than a little amused. And I do think someone should lend him a mirror.

The Republicans have become a party of big government, pork spending, deficits, and rights violations. That's not all Republicans by any means, but with their current leadership it's beem the result. The trouble is, the Democrats have long been the party of even bigger government, even more spending, and worse rights violations, and it appears to be impossible for them to even consider changing. So what is a libertarian to do? The Democrats are so dominated by screaming irrationalists that it's hard to see how anything short of falling to third-party status is going to change them. The Republicans are a coalition of several wings, from moderate libertarians to religious conservatives (most of whom aren't out to turn their religion into law), Nixonian crypto-fascists, and pork-grabbing opportunists (the Bush crowd, apparently). There's a chance of working within to swing them towards the libertarian side...

If I think of my own blogging, the question of whether or not to link is often driven by quite arbitrary considerations. Sometimes I won't link to a topic or post just to avoid getting reader email on that topic (abortion is one example here). Or if I type in the morning at the office, if it is winter and the heat isn't on my fingers are slow and the post will be shorter than usual. I am less likely to link. I am more likely to link to bloggers I like, know, or share common interests with, regardless of their political views. The linking is then simply more fun.

My experience is exactly the same as john mccrary's.

Many people have pointed out that bloggers like Althouse and Reynolds have articulated positions, especially on social issues, that can be fairly described as non-conservative. And yet many of us have an intuition that they are conservatives. Perhaps that is because our the conservative party, the GOP, has repeatedly abandoned its principles, such that the dominant brand of conservatism has been defined more by loyalty to the party, and to its leader. From nation-building to prescription-drug benefits to budget deficits -- the list goes on and on. On each of these issues, some Republicans dissent on policy grounds -- but never enough to make a difference. The vote-counters in the House know how many representatives can be allowed to stray each time. Republican Senators know that they vote on moderate principles if they like, since the conference committee will toe the House's line.

Thinking that the policy differences between people are what matter is like thinking that the Congress, not the Executive Branch, is the essential branch of government right now. But we have a conservative party that has yoked itself to its leader, and his personality and decisions are what drives the agenda. I'll leave it to Glenn Greenwald to chronicle how conservative bloggers choose to remain loyal to the party's interests, rather than to what used to thought of as conservative principles.

In my limited experience, Reynolds and Althouse are the blogging equivalent of the moderate Republicans in the House who will dissent on policy grounds from time to time, but never when it counts. It's a facade of independence, but something else is going on.

Another thought prompted by the comments above:

Many lefties look at the GOP and see a party dominated by religious conservatives, using libertarians as window-dressing. Many conservatives look at the Democratic Party and see it as the party of Michael Moore, using moderates as window-dressing. I don't think either caricature is accurate, but I do think that it's interesting that once people form some sort of psychic commitment to one side or the other, they then gather the evidence they need to discredit the other. (If you want to go look for evidence that the GOP/Democrats are dominated by the likes of John Ashcroft/Michael Moore, you can find some data points that fit the theory.)

Both parties are a whole lot more diverse and reasonable than the other side would have it.

Again, what's striking about Kate's remarks is how certain she seems to be of things that just aren't true. How can you complain that Ann and the Instaman never criticize republicans? You can only do so if you don't read their blogs on a regular basis. Go to Instapundit today and you'll see several posts in a months long series of posts on the Porkbusters theme. He's forever been critical of our domestic response to terrorism (as has Ann). He thinks our new and improved airport security measures are just for show and do nothing to increase actual safety. The list of things both Glenn and Ann regularly criticize Bush and the republicans on is long.

So, how can Kate and others make the claim that Glenn and Ann are arch conservatives? I assume Kate is being honest in stating this as her belief, so my answer is that she relies on others to color her view. The opinion of people she trusts is that Glenn and Ann are nothing but apologists for Bush, so she accepts that as the truth. It reminds me of my mother before she had ever heard the Rush Limbaugh show, she had heard that it was the worst example of hate radio. She despised the man and ridiculed him and anyone who would listen to such filth. Then, she happened to hear the show. She's now one of his biggest fans.

In my limited experience, Reynolds and Althouse are the blogging equivalent of the moderate Republicans in the House who will dissent on policy grounds from time to time, but never when it counts

You really don't know what you're talking about. Reynolds has repeatedly criticized the prescription drug benefit and the anti-gay-marriage campaign and has enthusiastically supported the "PorkBusters" campaign to shame Republicans into reigning in their out-of-control spending.

Claiming that he only deviates from the Republican line when he knows it is safe to do so is ignorant and stupid.

You really don't know what you're talking about. Reynolds has repeatedly criticized the prescription drug benefit and the anti-gay-marriage campaign and has enthusiastically supported the "PorkBusters" campaign to shame Republicans into reigning in their out-of-control spending.

You're missing my point, which admittedly may have been elusive. Whether or not you occasionally take different positions on policy is not the best test of whether someone is a Republican team player, whether they are a Congressman or a blogger.

You're missing my point, which admittedly may have been elusive. Whether or not you occasionally take different positions on policy is not the best test of whether someone is a Republican team player, whether they are a Congressman or a blogger.

"Team Player" being, in this context...what, exactly? A subjective perjorative, used by Party A in order to avoid judging Party B's positions by objective evidence, thereby permitting Party A to maintain unchallenged a set of prejudices against Party B?

"Team Player" being, in this context...what, exactly? A subjective perjorative, used by Party A in order to avoid judging Party B's positions by objective evidence, thereby permitting Party A to maintain unchallenged a set of prejudices against Party B?

If the end-all-and-be-all is having a policy discussion, than a label like "team player." It's too bad that it matters, in public policy discussions and in Congress, which party you're with, right? (I would tend to blame the party in power for that, but, hey, that's just me.) But looking beyond policy positions -- e.g., at which policies one emphasizes, or who one picks as targets -- is hardly simple "prejudice."

For what it's worth, Reynolds also self-identified as a Dukakis '88 voter in Reason's big survey before the last election. (It was his entry in the "Most embarrassing vote" category, but still.)

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