[The] highly successful "mixed" lawprof bloggers all blog from, and to a readership primarily on, the political right....Obvious and inflammatory theory #1: Lefties are more easily confused.
The couple of genuinely "mixed" lawprof bloggers to the left of center – I'm thinking, I guess, mostly of myself and Michael Froomkin, and I'd probably throw in Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Profs as well -- don't hold a candle to their readership or their influence.
What do I make of that? To be honest, I don't really know. I certainly don't think the legal academy is skewed towards a Republican/conservative viewpoint; it isn't.
The preeminence of right-of-center "mixed" lawprof bloggers may, however, reflect an overall blogospheric tilt to the right; look at the TTLB ecosystem's ten "Higher Beings" and you'll see that seven are blogs from the right, whereas only two are blogs from the left.
Or maybe it reflects something else entirely. I'd be curious to know what you think.
In any case, Larry[ Solum's] thesis – that lawprof bloggers who blog about law as well as lots of other stuff will confuse their readership and drive them away, and that their blogs will therefore fade away – appears to be incorrect, or at least incomplete. Something surely explains why certain "mixed" lawprof blogs are among the most successful blogs in the blogosphere, even among lawprofs and other consumers of legal scholarship, and something surely explains why right-of-center ones do a whole lot better than left-of-center ones.
Obvious and inflammatory theory #2: The flexible, wide-ranging intellect leans right.
Anyway... I think readers like mixed topic blogs more. Remember when Stephen Bainbridge took a vote about whether to put his material about corporate law on a separate blog? The readers strongly rejected the idea.
Posts
75 comments:
Inflammatory Theory #3: Smart people like those on the left, recognize their strengths, and stick to them. Many idiots don't realize how stupid they are, and freely expound on all sorts of topics they don't know anything about.
Inflammatory Theory #4: Righty law professors have an economic incentive to side with the corrupt and illegal administration. Recognizing their podium and ignoring what it took them to gain it, they exploit that podium for fame, and profit.
I think #2 is the most pertinent. It's an interesting time we're in, because I think - back a long time ago - the opposite was true.
What is like to be quxxo?
Quxxo: Lawprofs are, in general, very liberal. There's no economic incentive for us to express conservative political opinions. It's quite the opposite. But even if it were true, it wouldn't work as an answer to Muller's puzzlement. He cites left-leaning lawprofs who blog on multiple topics. The problem is their lack of readers. You need a theory that relates to readers.
"Many idiots don't realize how stupid they are..." -- look in a mirror, man.
Anecdote in support of #3, opposed to #4: John Stuart Mill: I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
What's it like being quxxo? It's like the kid from the Sixth Sense. I see braindead people. I try to help them understand their situation.
There's no economic incentive for us to express conservative political opinions.
Didn't you just sell an $800,000 house?
Mix.
Compassion and anti-status quo used to be the soul of hip and of course will always be part of it.
But now....
How very odd, quxxo.
Do you ever stop to think that your certainty about all of our souls may get in the way of your actual perceiving?
I mean, I know the answer to that question. (It's "no.") Take it as a suggestion: constant attacks on motivations, capacities, etc. are ultimately a losing hand. And say something about the purveyor that make it very hard to work to give a shit about whatever substance you might sporadically provide.
"Did you just sell an $800,00 house?"
Like, that argument: it's so dumb as to shake one's faith in the very undergirding that produced it. (I doubt the value of her house has much to do with her recent blogging, or any occasional revelation of non-left opinions over the years.)
It's a spastic question. It betrays a certain frantic-ness.
Actually, though, it's valuable. It's a good example of one way left opinions tend to go off the rails: a steadfast inability or refusal to meticulously examine cause and effect.
How many data points are we talking about?
Are you sure you haven't confused the independent variable and the dependent variable?
Why is Muller limiting it to law prof bloggers and not just lawyer bloggers? What would happen to these theories if you actually expanded the definition to either academic bloggers or to lawyer bloggers?
These data points are neither a random sample, nor are they equal in their genesis. They are snapshots of a time series. Who are the popular bloggers on the left and right? Mixed or focused?
The answer is mu, and you know it with your inflammatory theories.
So ignoring the many popular academic and lawyer and econ bloggers on the left that are mixed and focused like Kos, here are some more theories:
Smart lefties realize that law is often just a sad exercise in screwing others, and that today's progressive efforts are to be found more in economic justice and the innovations of science than in the innovations of legal theories that pervert justice. And so our popular mixed bloggers are economists, lawyers, scientists, and journalists.
Smart lefties don't like ad-hominem and hate and stupidity. So today's most popular hate sites, like Powerline, are frequently authored by lawyers. That sort of crap would not be accepted by the left. We answer to a higher authority.
The answer is mu. It's a dumb question with no scientific basis asked about an invalid sample.
Posed by a lawyer.
Years ago, when I was a workaholic and was razor focused on my career, my sister said to me, "you used to be about so many things, and now you're only about one thing." I thought about her comment a lot. I can't say it was the sole reason I reformed my ways, but it did resonate. I think it applies to why a mixed blog, and yours in particular, is more interesting to both the writer and readers than one that is focused solely on law. But it doesn't explain the political part.
First, what's the audience?
It may be true that people in the law field skew left, but that doesn't matter if the law field makes up a small portion of the audience.
For example, maybe the righty blogs have a high percentage of technical/engineer readers. From my experience, technical people tend to skew right (individualist/libertarian, sort of) when it comes to the law.
Yeah. You're right, Sippican. Engagement is just so tempting, because the attitude and ejaculations seem so emblematic of the way the left's soul has curdled. It sad for all of us if that soul is beyond redemption.
I do believe he's a she, though. I seem to remember that. Might be wrong.
Ann, you have my vote for #2. Lefties just are not open-minded. And I have two in my family.
I like the mixed blog here. The politics is not one sided, the law is interesting to me, a non lawyer, but not overwhelming, and most of your commenters are intelligent, clever and succinct.
dave -
Just talking about the wide-ranging rage supported by allowing only certain facts into their version of debate.
It feels to me like an addiction to rage, or seen slightly more generously, an addiction to the powerful sensation of moral clarity.
I see your site meter has slowed to 4.466 million - many are languishing for more of your sketches....
Sippican: interesting.
Dave: some, of course, always true of some individuals on both sides. It's a judgment based on the relative lack of intellectual honesty I see in the arguments all over the place on the left, from blogs to papers to politicians to people I talk to.
There’s a framework of nonsense that Shall Not Be Questioned; and it all leads to righteous anger.
Jim -
You seem reasonable; here's my experience:
I literally don't know any friendly center-left people who read what I consider to be essential sources and opinions: National Review, Weekly Standard, Powerline, Instapundit, City Journal, and so on, to name a few.
Almost all of those are dismissed as "hate sites" or sources. Which they simply are not. I don't know how to convince you of that; I find them to be committed to their perspectives but very open to debate and generally strict with themselves about facts.
It's a kind of left intellectual blindness that postures as highly moral. Very strange.
Theory: Left-leaning lawprof bloggers write for their colleagues, who tend to agree with them politically. Right-leaning lawprofs, accustomed to political disagreements with their peers, are less likely to see other lawprofs as a target audience. Writing for a (more) general audience leads them to a broader selection of subject matter.
quxxo said...
Inflammatory Theory #3: Smart people like those on the left, recognize their strengths, and stick to them. Many idiots don't realize how stupid they are, and freely expound on all sorts of topics they don't know anything about.
This is why Streisand sticks to her singing, and Chomsky to his linguistics.
I think it was also Oscar Wilde who said: "All things change, with the exception of experimental theater."
Inflammatory Theory n+1: Since you have comments and are so often uninterested or just plain wrong on the facts and the law, you are forced to blog about other topics. The most successful right law prof bloggers don't allow comments. But as you wisely realized early on, it's part of your value-add and how you distinguish yourself from other righty law prof blogger like Glenn Reynolds.
Actually I think Jim makes a very good point, and of course I love how paul states it this way, "you seem reasonable until you disagree with me."
Okay. Do you mind if I ask a couple specific questions, Jim? I'm honestly curious about a couple specific issues: what your take on the conservative view is, say, on the relationship between Hussein and international Islamic terror. That is, what you see as that view, and where it falls down.
The reason I ask about that is because it seems like a key point of separation from reality on the left: what they think someone like Stephen Hayes at the Standard believes, and what the facts say. So I'm looking to be disabsued of a misperception.
Sippican Cottage;
You may be the most informed (or full of interesting information-is that the same thing?) person on this blog. I compliment you for never being tedious.
I suspect the readership/influence issue is connected to different linking behaviours in the right- and left-leaning bits of the blogosphere. Right-leaning blogs are generally pretty generous with their out-links, whereas the most influential left-leaning blogs (e.g. DailyKos) are largely self-contained. They link out, sure, but not as much as central right-leaning blogs, like Instapundit, who does nothing but link out. And while there are right-wing answers to the DailyKos approach (e.g. RedState), they don't dominate right-leaning traffic to anywhere near the same extent as DailyKos does for the Left.
That more frequent out-linking behaviour spreads the readership, and leads to more readership for right-leaning mixed-blogs (classifying, arguendo Prof. Althouse as "right").
With regard to the greater incidence of mixed-blogs on the Right vs. the Left (broadly construed), that may be because the academy as a whole, as an establishment Institution, trends leftist, and so left-leaning bloggers approach the issue of blogging from a more establishmentarian perspective, including playing up their formal qualifications and expertise over their broader personal interests and hobbies.
Or perhaps not. But at least this isn't inflammatory. I think. Haha
AJ Lynch- I'm kinda older and jaded a bit now, but I blushed when I read that.
Even if you're wrong, I'm grateful you wrote it.
In the words of that immortal bard, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, from "I Put a Spell on You:"
I don't care if you dont' want me-
I'M YOURS
Instapundit is the most popular law prof blogger, even if your favorite poll doesn't include him as such, they are the only ones.
He freely uses his bully pulpit to tell people what he thinks is legal and what he thinks is illegal, and his views stand above yours in that because he is a law prof.
Volokh currently has comments. Twernt always so, and definitely not so when they nurtured their misfacts.
O Liberal Marklar, I hope you do your policy analysis better than this.
That's interesting; I didn't see how Hussein might be a threat - to us directly - other than through terrorist connections, which I found and find increasingly to have been numerous and worrying, if not actively "collaborative."
How do you see H to have been a threat other than that? Do you mean to Middle East regional stability; or to oil supplies or something?
My statement there of the terrorist connection is pretty much what I see Hayes as being involved in demonstrating. Do you agree with my perception of the threat and of what someone like Hayes is up to? I'd be interested in how you see it as wrong if you have inclination or time.
(When I say "separated from reality," I'm referring to what seems to be a wide insistence on the left that Hussein "had nothing to do" with al Qaeda or other international Islamic terror, a formulation I find to be ridiculous and also a big part of the rage-framework I talk about.)
I was amused by this, in an out-of-context sort of way:
[A]cademics get a bit confused when they encounter a blog that mixes in a lot of "other stuff" .
Yeah, well, sometimes their students get confused when academics mix in a lot of "other stuff" into their stated disciplines, say, lit or linguistics.
Yeah, yeah ... that was obvious and cheap. What can I say? It's that kind of day. Everything's funny to me today.
(P.S. I'm really, really afraid to ask this, but how long has there been a wheelchair at the lower left of the vh box?)
I suppose one reason right-of-center lawprof blogs have taken off may be precisely because legal academia is so left-of-center. Perhaps liberal professors are more satisfied with the real-life "mixed-topic" political/cultural exchanges they have with their colleagues, whereas more conservative professors have more incentive to find or create cyber communities to share their views in because their opportunities on campus are more limited or met with more hostility. It could be argued that other groups, like gays and lesbians, who are cultural minorities in real life have taken greater advantage of the internet to form communities than people who feel included in the culture that surrounds them in real life.
This may directly contradict what I just proposed, but I also agree with marghlar in that I have a limited interest in reading the views of people I innately agree with, so I find myself coming to moderate/conservative sites more often than one would predict based on my political inclinations.
Just a side point, but is it really necessary to argue that liberals are stupid so they do this or conservatives are hateful so they do that? I tend to think the personalities of people who think/talk/blog a lot about political-legal type issues are really more alike than they are different, whether they identify as liberals or conservatives or libertarians. Similar flaws, similar virtues. Personally, I find this kind of debate over which group has worse personal characteristics tiresome and unproductive (but maybe that just goes to show you how stupid liberals like me are).
Jim - I pretty much agree with all of that. I think the distinction between Hussein and, say, Saudi Arabia - with regard to your question "how can we let SA stand" if terrorist connections are the issue - is this: a. with Iraq, that was just part a laundry list of reasons, as you describe; and b. perceived doability.
quxxo said...
Inflammatory Theory n+1: Since you have comments and are so often uninterested or just plain wrong on the facts and the law, you are forced to blog about other topics...
The above should probably be ignored, but I was just curious as to why it was said? Quxxo, can you point out some specific examples of Ms.Althouse being wrong on facts and the law. It's all so over my head; perhaps your clarification and wisdom can make it a bit clearer.
******
Some moron-- and not someone astute like Quxxo-- once said that the most likely answer to something is the simplest one... but that sounds just crazy to me. That would mean Ann merely blogs according to her own interests and whims, and not for any nefarious reasons or quxxotic (ooh typo) efforts at avoiding difficult points of law.
(Also, it seems like the question of a left/right division in lawprof blogging styles contains too many variables for any useful conclusions, and, the conclusion that should definately not be drawn is that left or the right is more stupid).
-See Quxxo's inflammatory theory #3
Mackan said...
....conservative academics are so interesting because they perform impossible feats, like arguing that a minimum wage is bad for poor people or that you can't draw any connection between record gas prices and record Exxon profits.
Mackan, you are aware that Exxon makes only about 12 cents on every dollar of revenue, and their revenue just happens to be massive. So some 88 cents goes to everything else: administration, exploration, and various other costs and operating costs.
That's in comparison with, say, software companies like Microsoft, who make over 20 cents for each dollar in revenue.
You will know when Exxon is truly profiteering when their profit margins actually rise out of wack to their revenues by a huge margin. Like when they are profiting say, 30 cents for every dollar of revenue.
Exxon's only way to control "demand" is to manipulate price, and that would show up in the relationships between revenues and net profits.
quxxo said...
...But I think if you crawl back and examine her thoughts about Plame, NSA Wiretapping, and torture, you will find Ann wrong on the facts and the law in most of these cases. She has also apparently been wrong quite consistently on what the views of Americans are wrt the war, wiretapping, and the President.
Quxxo, why don't YOU crawl back and find an example or two of Ms.Althouse being incorrect on the facts. I will wait here. Since you made the original assertion, I have no desire to do your work for you, nor do I have a spare 100 years to dig for evidence of your correctness. Besides, you're a mathematician and computer scientist, an infinitely capable of proving what flows from your own lips. I believe in you. You can do it!
The core difference (in my opinion) is that on the left side of the blogosphere, policing everyone's behavior is the paramount goal.
On the right side, it's more about explaining your own position and ideas.
The left produces diatribes, accusations, screams of 'daemon' to those from the other side, and screams of 'apostate' on those on their own side when they leave the script.
There are few left of the blogosphere bloggers who aren't fundamentalist and puritanical in approach (though their fundamentalism and puritanicalism is in the service of anti-religious secular humanism, soak up the irony)
(would reading a Cotton Mather tract sound all that different in tone from the posts of the quxxos of the world?)
The right produces its share of anger, but most widely read commentators on the right also are willing to concede when a point has been made, regardless of source.
Also as Balfegor mentioned earlier conservatives link far more liberally (as in broadly), while liberals link far more conservatively (as in an insular manner).
Am I being unfair?
Do I care?
I agree with the original commenter, Dave. I have read Muller's blog, and followed Froomkin's for awhile. I know Michael from post speaker' dinner socializing after some of Mark Lemley's computer law conferences when he was at Texas, and Froomkin stood out as being one of the smartest of a very smart crowd (that is also where I met Eugene Volokh). But on those blog sites, conservatives were very rare, and soon ridiculed.
Both Ann's blog and volokh.com attract a fairly wide mix of commenters. As noted, the threads on the NSA international surveilance program at volokh.com were extrodinarily good. You had well read and articulate commenters from both sides of the issue doing battle over the legality of the program. The results, I will submit, were enlightening to all. I know that because of it, I am far better informed than almost anyone I have met outside of the blogosphere on the subject.
What I loved there was that legal theories, etc. on both sides could be honed through this give and take. I had more than one of mine shot down in flames.
So, my theory is that one reason that slightly conservative law prof blogs work better than liberal ones is that there is a lot more tolerance for both sides there. And, frankly, after essentially being called stupid (because my arguments were from the right) on some liberal blogs, I lost interest.
I will also admit that the blogs that I like the best are those where decorum is enforced. Ann does a good job here, only rarely booting quxxo, and volokh.com is probably even more draconian. I remember one poster there during the NSA debate who got banned because of his intemperate, personal, remarks. At the time, I wasn't happy about it, because, in between his ad hominum attacks, he was making some really good points. But, in the end, I think that Kerr was right in banning him - that sort of thing was nipped in the bud there. And, I have seen other blogs where it wasn't, and they often degenerate into name calling.
As a mathematician and computer scientist I find no topological difference between having a blog or commenting on a blog.
As a mathematician, engineer, and senior solution architect (computer scientists work under him, babe, and not on the sales side, but rather the technical side), my husband laughed his ass off at this.
What a non sequitur.
Well, I don't believe that either forced feeding or what goes on at Gitmo qualifies as torture under, for example, the torture treaty that the U.S. signed. Yes, the U.N., et al. can use other, more generous, definitions, but that doesn't make their definitions determinitive, rather, they are just their politically inspired opinions.
Most of the organizations cited have obvious reasons for pushing for more liberal or generous definitions of torture. But the U.N. comes in for special scorn in this area, given some of the countries that have been members of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Maghlar:You see? It's actually pretty easy to get along, if you make an effort.
I appreciate your attitude although I frequently disagree with you.
Q: A+ for the comeback. That was funny.
To talk about "topology" (yes, I know what that is and what it means in networking terms) misses the point about blogs and the concept of blog hosts (in the sense of the person/people, not the hosting entity) or proprietors, or whatever, is to miss which set of relevant facts are most appropriate to the relationship you're trying to analyze.
(That's me, not the "puppy," by the way He's off beating up the wussy Rottweiler next door.)
The Rottweiler was the one who chewed off from my hands the few fingers that DON'T MAKE ALL THESE DAMN TYPOS.
Heh.
I probably deserved it, too. I'm sure you'd agree, Quxxo.
Where is the blogmaster? The Supreme Court rules unanimously on an important jurisdiction question. Time to talk about that now!
quxxo said...
Here's a recent error of fact: Ann: forced feeding is not torture, but Physcians for Human Rights, the AMA, The UN Human Rights Council, our American Suffragettes all disagree with her.
Actually Finn, if you read the entire thread it becomes clear that Professor Althouse hadn't even read the research she was complaining about.
Quxxo, thanks for making the attempt to follow up with some evidence regarding Ms.Althouse being wrong on the "facts".
I fail to understand how stating that "forcefeeding is not torture" (when the alternative to being fed might be certain death) is anything beyond an opinion, and an opinion that sits in contrast to other OPINIONS by various other bodies (AMA, U.N.); especially when the actual definition of what constitutes torture is open to non-binding interpretation.
I think much of what Ms.Althouse says is clearly her interpretation of laws and events that are rather unclear. It should not be her place to agree with the opinions of our choosing, as though my opinion on torture, or the U.N.'s, represents actual settled, univerally applied and agreed to law.
(Quxxo, you probably do need your own blog, and I say that not just 'cause you are not annoying 2% of the time. You seem to be passionate and have viewpoints that others might share. Your own blog provides that expansive space to let loose.)
There's a simple and readily understandable definition of torture that anyone who frequently reads comments at Prof. Althouse's blog should consider
Torture=What Quxxo does to logic
(and what exactly does this discussion of torture have to do with the original post in the first place?)
Quxxo: You need to stop trying to make every comment thread about you. Speak to the topic. I am sick of putting up a subject, seeing lots of comments, then coming in here and seeing a little show you've made about you. I actually do not have the capacity to block you entirely, but I will delete you repeatedly, and I am warning you, if you continue to do what you did today. I will not let you carry out your plan to sink my comment threads by making them about you. The end of that game is NOW. And don't waste your time telling me it's not a plan or making some other excuse. You must change NOW or be repeatedly deleted. I will go back into this thread and remove many of your comments, because you clearly must suffer for the disruption you caused today. How many comments did you put up? 100? Ridiculous!
quxxo said...
Take as an error of fact her original post: "I don't see the argument that detainees are free to commit suicide."
Well, she's wrong on the facts. Lots of lawyers and physicians find this a sad, but logical and honorable argument.
Sure it is just her opinion, but she never even acknowledges that the other opinion is even a possibility.
This isn't a matter of opinion; Ann is simply correct here. Suicide is illegal, so no one is "free" to do it. If the authorities discover you trying to commit suicide through self-starvation, you will be forcibly fed. That's always been the case, but lefties only call it torture when Bush does it.
One can argue (I would) that people should be free to kill themselves, but the fact is they aren't.
Thanks, Marghlar. I spoke to him today myself, and it was abundantly clear that trying to engage with him makes him behave terribly. He's clearly a troll and must not be fed.
Ann Althouse said...
Quxxo: You need to stop trying to make every comment thread about you. Speak to the topic. I am sick of putting up a subject, seeing lots of comments, then coming in here and seeing a little show you've made about you.
Well, to play devil's advocate a bit, I think quxxo did make this thread more interesting and entertaining than it otherwise would have been. Did you really expect "lots of comments" on the question "Is there a left-right division about whether lawprof blogs should stick to law or range over multiple topics?" My response to that would be "Zzzzzz..."
Lefties just are not open-minded.
I actually disagree with that.
Fanatics, of either political stripe, are not open-minded.
People with strong convictions are often accused of not being flexible, when in reality, they just know where they stand.
With fanatics, however, it's not that they don't know where they stand: it's that they denigrate the intelligence of everyone who doesn't stand with them.
Whichever side takes this track, frequently loses the argument.
Cheers,
Victoria
I actually do not have the capacity to block you entirely, but I will delete you repeatedly, and I am warning you, if you continue to do what you did today. I will not let you carry out your plan to sink my comment threads by making them about you. The end of that game is NOW.
My God! I just got a chubby.
Cheers,
Victoria
Smilin' Jack: It's my topic, not a place to turn into the Quxxo show. You know Quxxo has a blog, so you can go over there and have fun with him if you think it's so interesting stroking his vanity.
Dave, 1:48 PM :
Couldn't agree more. It's a question of competitive advantage. The Left doesn't need a mixed blog, they have the media establishment. To the extent that readership (or the lack of it) influences bloggers, left-leaning blogs are probably pushed farther left, because the audience for the center-left has been taken by the MSM.
The mixed-blogs on the right serve as an alternative to the media for conservative readers.
The free market in action, hooray!
I admit to not having read every single one of the comments here carefully, but I am truly surprised that the discussion has not focused on the inherent error in the basic post.
Althouse hosts a "Left of Center" blog, rather than
"Right of Center" blog. It just happens to be "READ" by more "Right of Center" people.
Beyond the GWOT, Ann by self description is more liberal (perhaps with a libertarian streak) than conservative. On all the bench mark social issues she is clearly Left, as fitting an academic.
Ah, I think in the legal area she does give some credence to the concept of non-politicization of the SCOTUS process and if civility is a republican virtue, she may need to plead at least no contest to one or more charges.
Her labeling problem seems to derive from the fact that many of us in her fan club self describe as republicans or conservatives, though in my case, I would be labeled a RINO by many.
Lastly of course, the loud trolls are almost exclusively from the Left, thus giving the rest of us a certain tinge of normalcy and civlity.
Drill SGT:
If my memory serves correctly, she did vote for Bush in 2004, although certainly you can be "left-of-center" and vote for Bush (he did win 51% of the vote).
Call me shallow, but unless you can find a better way to classify blogs, who they voted for in 2004 seems is how I do it.
And I voted for Clinton (once) and Carter (once) and McGovern (once) and campaigned for Kennedy (RFK once). Proves little. She doesn't trust the Dem's on GWOT. I told you.
She self describes as liberal. You either need to trust her on that, or go spend your time more usefully elsewhere I think.
"I'd rather visit sites where the personality of the blogger takes a back seat to the issues of substance."
1) Depends on the personality.
2) Depends on who's defining substance.
*I think the AI posts were excellent ways to initially bring in an audience via google. There's no arguing with strategy and success; plus, it's helps one's approval rating, you know. :)
That one move by Ann, of apparently voting for Bush in 2004, is what initially I think got her a big chunk of her slightly to the right following. But if you read her reasoning for her vote at the time, it was something to the effect that though Kerry had a lot of good points, she believed Bush had some too, and, in particular, would be better in the GWOT. Clearly not the thought process of a conservative like me, who couldn't see any real positives with Kerry (or Gore, Clinton, Carter, or Johnson for that matter), or the liberals in my family, who feel that way about Bush 43, 41, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon. (Sorry Ann about my amateur psychoanalysis or whatever it was).
Nevertheless, while I understand that Ann has self-identified until recently as a liberal, I don't see her as one here. Rather, on some subjects she seems a little to the right, and some, a little to the left. About the only place I have detected any zealotry from her when it comes to the supposed superiority of females.
And that is part of what I think makes it work here. This moderation of hers allows both sides of many issues to come out, and, as a result, this has turned into a decent meeting place between the right and the left. And, as I noted above, that is also why I think that volokh.com has flourished (though I think that the NSA discussion there was good, despite Kerr's apparently strong feelings on the subject).
Think of Saint Peter counting up Ann's sins and blessings (you chose) at the gates of heaven.
In the right column :
- 1 vote for Bush 43
- support for strong presidential powers in time of war
In the Left column (sort of, some of these are just imputed left of center)
- every other vote she has ever cast for Dem's.
- Feminist
- pro-choice
- anti-solomon
- pro gun control
- anti ANWR drilling
- pro-green-enviro
- pro gay marriage
- pro-illegals? perhaps
- pro AI :)
the list goes on.....
I don't have time to read over 100 comments so this may have been expressed already. I read three mixed law prof blogs daily. I've concluded that I enjoy the way they bring their finally honed legal minds to a range of subjects. When these bloggers address legal topics, I learn from them. The reason mixed bloggers have a larger readership is that they pull from a larger pool of potential readers. The left-right division seems an artificial construct: Glenn Reynolds is libertarian, I consider Ann a centrist, and I don't have a clue about Nina Camic's politics!
Call me shallow, but unless you can find a better way to classify blogs, who they voted for in 2004 seems is how I do it.
I get the impression that altoid is not alone in this.
I wouldn't necessarily call that shallow (much less altoid, whom I don't know from Adam, so how can I know?), but, speaking of people generally, I do find it surprising if people who use that criteria also imply or state that they value nuance and/or expect it from others.
I think I've figured this comment thread out. I sense some Colbert-esque dissonance going on. Quxxo and Mackan appear to be the only liberals making the claim that center-right blogs are popular because of some character defect among conservatives. On the other hand, most of the conservative commenters here seem to be (1) patting themselves on the back at how remarkably smart, disciplined and openminded they are while also (2) blasting liberals as “petty” and “immature” and “just not openminded” and having “curdled souls” and exhibiting a "steadfast inability or refusal to meticulously examine cause and effect" and being “addicted to rage” and “lacking intellectual honesty” and so on and so on. How very smart, disciplined and openminded!
So, perhaps you’re all just doing the play-demagoguery thing: in your hearts you distrust liberals on some level, but you’re using this outrageous and inflammatory rhetoric to make fun of your own excesses? Clever, very clever.
Post a Comment