Scary Republican Blogs

In blogging about progressive political theater, I've increasingly wondered what "other side" (there are probably a few other sides, Venn diagram-like) is (are) thinking. So I googled "Republican blogs" and looked at a few top results. Here's what I found, in the order I found it:

1. This was a top result, an old lady in Texas who likes racist cartoons and reports, regarding terrorists within the U.S., "We're all probably better off not knowing." Wow. You see, every time I give the far right a chance to make sense, it comes up with racist cartoons and contradictory points about "security" that alternate between nuke-worshipping and head-in-sand-burying. One racist cartoon:

2. A site that's currently down called "BoottotheSkull.com." I mean, does it matter what's on the site, if it's a political blog invoking boots to the skull? One flashes back to curb-stomping in that Ed Norton movie about Nazis, soccer hooligans, Abu Ghraib, The Siege, etc. Let's hope the barbarians who run the site don't read this post and find Steve and steal his cute dogs.

3. This is the worst of the bunch, partly because it's the most reasonable (unreasonable as it is), and it's authored by the youngest blogger - a mere 18 year-old, a kid who hasn't had time to look at all the philosophical positions in America yet. He does have crazy typoesz ("...the election’s still a ways off, and I’m there’s a conservative out there somewhere who’ll step up..."), so that makes him more of a crazy internet kid, right? But he also has a right wing/Christian magazine called "Regenerate Our Culture." (Not currently in print, as the kid's off to college. The homepage invites you to "pursue our archives," lol.) Overall impression: Not so hateful, but not a great source for real educational or political material. These are top results. This means these blogs, for whatever reason, by whatever magic feat of SEO and Digging, have had lots of hits, at least in the last few years. They span from young to old, heartland to coast, but they all seethe with undisguised rage - rage you'd never find here, as Ryan posts about Assassin's Creed or I post about giant scorpions or Harry Potter.

The Republican blogs, these random samples, don't challenge my views via argument or information.

I love what my friend Garrett Heaney at Wishtank stresses about information. It's harder, actually harder, to change someone's mind by arguing simply from an emotional or even an abstractly logical standpoint. And if you personally differ on views ("Well, I was raised as a...;" "I don't think all men are such..."), what can you do besides argue your emotion or lay out an ideal logic? Well, you can provide data. You can back up your words with sources. You can do research and keep telling people "look at these numbers!" or "look at this video!" until someone looks.

Well, or at least not have such crahze typoes whne you'r talingk about infallible dietys and how stupid liberls are.