Fergus Cullen has some advice in his Union Leader column this morning.(print or e-edition) Resolutions that do not include exercise or dieting, to quote the author. They are all of course political, the most entertaining of which is a suggestion that Carol Shea-Porter run for President.
But my favorite was this one.
For bloggers and online posters, man up and identify yourselves when you comment. There are too many anonymous cowards in the online world. Civility is more persuasive than angry rant. If you don’t have the courage to say who you are when taking a shot at someone, you probably shouldn’t say it.
I agree, mostly.
As someone who invites anonymous rants daily I believe that anyone who "blogs" up front should be equally upfront about who they are. It demands things of you and your writing while making you accountable for what you write. And it creates an anchor of sorts to your principles–assuming you have some–and the dialogue.
As for comments, there is a certain freedom in anonymity that creates avenues of "debate" we might otherwise miss, but half of the more obnoxious ones I encounter on my own blogs (that we could stand to miss) are democrat party staffers or their fellow travelers using disposable email address and fake names to spew nonsense. While it can offer new things to blog about it rarely adds value.
Consider that to be a lesson to those of you on my side who do the same thing. Better yet, use this rule (whether posting anonymously or not); If you can’t say it as who you are maybe you are not the person who should be saying it.
As for ‘civility being more persuasive than rant,’ that depends on the point of the rant. Used as satire, invective can be a literary force akin to Alinskyesque ridicule. Progressives understand it, and some of them can deliver it, but many are incapable of dealing with it when directed at them. It makes them, to quote Marvin the Martian, "very-very angry." Unhinged, perhaps. Done properly it invites counter rants, sometimes from people who do use their names, ripe with opportunity. Raw meat for the progressive beasts.
So you Isolate and attack. Ridicule. Make them accountable for their endless contradictions and hypocrisy. Make them live by their own rules–which is great fun because they don’t really have any and they are always changing which is a rule in itself.
Not everyone can do that or should, but somebody has to otherwise they control that field is left uncontested.
That does not mean that rant is a superior form of communication, just that it is necessary when appropriate and handled by people willing to accept responsibility for it. It is here where Fergus is exactly correct. If you cannot rant as yourself, you should not rant at all. Or put another way, don’t try this at home.
