Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Incivility vs. Disagreement

Interesting Opinion page in the paper today. On the one side you have a letter from Kathleen Roecker addressing the issue of incivility in West Bend politics as of late, served up hot and fresh courtesy of Ginny Maziarka, Owen Robinson, Mary Weigand and the commentators over at Boots and Sabers, among others. You won't do exactly as I say? Well then you are a gay-porn loving liberal who isn't listening to the honest taxpayer of West Bend.

On the other side you have a column by Owen Robinson where he, in typical Belling style, twists the original issue of the lack of civility into making the argument that liberal incumbents simply can't put up with people who calmly disagree with them.

Thoughts?

3 comments:

  1. Based on the lenghty back and forth that I had with Owen and several nameless people yesterday at BS I would say that anything the district or common council does that is not run by owen et al will be scorned and ridiculed.

    There is absolutely a lack of civility in this community. Yesterday someone at BS pretended to be me and wrote something that was highly offensive. So offensive that Owen had it removed. that's what being faceless and having no accountability will do to some people.

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  2. I hear you Kris. That said, sometimes I wonder how much the blogs actually matter. I mean really, how many people read B&S? It's the same 15 people commenting all day. Same with The Motley Cow. There are about 50 of us and we are all working each other up into a total panic attack, right? I assume the rest of the city doesn't care, right? They simply read a few letters in the paper and form their opinion from that?

    Now, I'm faceless as well. Not faceless because I really care about people not knowing who I am, I just find it more interesting to keep 'em guessing. I will say however that, contrary to what someone on B&S said, I have nothing to do with city government in any capacity. I've never written a letter to the editor or been to a school board meeting. I just simply had enough of the bullcrap these common-sense people are slinging.

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  3. Also, I've really just started tuning Owen out, the same way I tune Belling out. Belling sells paranoia and without it he has nothing. It seems Owen is angling for his own radio show and is using the Belling model. It's a good model that works. If the free market demands fear, who is to deny Owen the right to deliver it for the right price?

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