Joerg:

You've been had. I've been watching what "the big sort' authors Bishop and Cushing take this take, when in fact there "scholarhip" is actually a playbook for Democratic elections and fits into a set of memes that Bishop in partiucular is constructing.

The other effort on illusion-making he's running is an all-out effort to convice people that the thrust behind the Democratic party's activists are not eliteists by running a kind of incredibly fake "rural-democrat" blog that hits the points authored and cared for only in the precious organic-farming neighborhoods of Manhattan, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, and Dupost Circle in DC. No doubt that overwelming groundswell of rural lefties (the ones who don't mind being told that they cling to God and guns, have to face the shock of the urban elite that they wear shoes and have their front teeth...) would be pleased by such a well staged presentation, all three of them.

The big example they like to use is the 1976 US presidential election as a benchmark of nominal "unity" somehow being greater than '04 when the Republicans were evil "dividers". This is horseshit. in '76, the US election was an abberation where Ford was being punished for a demonized Nixon - little else. Note that they did NOT use the uniform detestation of Carter where the country was just as "unified". Moreover a look at their maps of a "unified" country show deeper divisions than today - regional and racial voting to a greater degree.

As for this specious effort to build "unity", the left trots it out once every 4 years, and it bubbles along for the other 3 among those on the left who seem to want a one-party state where unity means never having a choice after the Democratic primaries such as there are in most east coast cities. They don't touch on just how corrupt these places are.

A few days later I noticed this telling peice from the American thinker:

Calls for unity are frequently heard in the context of issues concerning religious morality. Opposition to abortion and non-traditional marriage are both often characterized by the Left as "wedge issues", as if religions dating back several millennia were specifically crafted to provide talking points in some 21st century political contest.


The term "wedge issue" is noteworthy. What exactly does this mean? The fact that there are two separate opinions on a subject and a politician is attempting to clearly distinguish his or her position on such is supposed to be a bad thing? Isn't that the point of politics? Isn't this the point of freedom of speech, debate, and assembly?


Another oft-heard complaint is that the opposition is inflexible and not open to compromise. The fallacy here is that every issue has a middle ground in which the Left and right can meet without surrendering their principles. In our own checkered past of slavery and Jim Crow is it not a blessing that the abolitionists and civil rights protesters were unwilling to seek that "middle ground"? Does anyone, in hindsight, look back fondly on the Missouri Compromise?

You've been had. All these guys are is another 'provisional wing' of a slick, hollywood stage-managed, well funded left that is trying to make partisan every last social instiution in the country. If they succeed, we'll be a corrupt little one-party nation like Mexico under the PAN for 80 years. The irony is, that these two guys are using that very argument to ship us all there.

[blockquote]America, says Mr Bishop, is splitting into "balkanised communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible."[/blockquote]

Nonsense. We are less likely to have regional accents, have "local" customs and mores. In fact the other bleat is that by some magic WalMart and 7Eleven are making us homogenous. What these two crypto-politicos are angry about is that there are multiple sources for news, and they lionize the good old days when Kronkite was his master's voice.

Joerg: they are trying to make an argument that FEWER choices in information are more. COMMUNITIES should define individual voting choices. That there is some importance in cultural homogeneity, (because heaven knows, NOONE can cope with being around people who don't agree with everyone else's every word!)

When they say "segregated", what they mean is that it isn't uniformly propping up their world view. At the same time, they make no comment on political factionalization based on race, gender, or anything else that fits the class-warfare playbook. Bishop and Cushing are intellectual hit-men. Nothing more.
They are making a roundabout argument against pluralism. And seemingly intelligent people are buying it. Thisd isn't about "bowling alone", it's an underhanded attempt to make us all bowl in unison.

One of them spoke at Pew this week, presumably to soften the listeners' minds to the notion that pluralism, independant unregulated information sources, blogs, and the like shouldn't have a future. What's strange about their appearance there, is that it's normally reserved for people presenting on projects that they fund.

The Q&A responding to the question "but what can be done about this?!?" must have been hilarious, because the only honest answer would be to regulate speech, shut down blogs, and forcably relocate homeowners by income classification. You know, all of that "socially just" redistributive stuff.

Not unlike the "Jesusland" map, which was the sole intellectual property of the fringe of the party that lost. That's the illustration that appeared in the NYT, by the way.

But so what?

Really... what are you going to do about this alleged problem and why would you bother? To TAKE AWAY speech rights? To construct some idealized delusion? In 1978, virtually all the broadcast media tended left. Conservative discourse was on a tiny part of the magazine rack or had to come in the mail.

This thought is only dawning on these people because they found themselves having to share some space with conservatives.
The half of the population that tends to the right would hardly get sentimental for those days when they were structurally dispossessed. Oh! But what "unity" society had!

That we reference was rhetorical. What lessons can Scott McLellan's recent employment pitch tell us about this issue? Zilch.

Just take a cold, hard look at what their "study", as weak as it is, is supposed to lead to: ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer. Unity is not especially needed, not at the expense of free will.

If those were my two choices, I'd go with free will. Wisdom and judgement can be depended upon to carry us through the polite daily pap that these clowns find so important. It's "plan B" for people who have to deal with those who might not agree with them: make every attempt to make shut cut off their rights.

I don't think you get just how venal this notion is. They're arguing that other peoples' opinions need to be stifled for them to celebrate the imposition of their ideas on others which is being redefined as "unity".

Cute. Nice try, Bish. In another age, you'd be pulling for the neaest tyrant.

Yes. There movement went into collapse when they tried to go mainstream after the "million man march".