Fire with Fire

Earlier today, Roger asked if it was possible for Left and Right to have a dialogue with one another any more. But this was the bit that rang most true to me:

Humans are the most traditional of species. And for no one is this truer than liberals. They are the ultimate creatures of habit, marooned on Atoll 1968 with a giant Do Not Disturb sign blocking all approaching boats, even submarines. Progressives against progress.

See, I can still talk — and even find common ground — with your average liberal. Since I’m a libertarian, we even start with some common ground, which helps immensely. Joking around on Twitter a few days ago, things got slightly more serious than usual, leading me to propose a sort of “Grand Compromise” on the banking system.

• Bring back Glass-Steagall in exchange for removing Dodd-Frank

• No more bailouts

• And a new rule forbidding publicly-traded companies from trading on Wall Street. The old private firms had skin in the game, and behaved accordingly.

These three changes would, I think, go a long way to restoring our financial system to sanity — and I got liberals to agree.

Progressives, however, are a different creature. A nasty, snarling, mean-spirited creature. You can’t debate. You can’t compromise. Well, at least not with the online variety — but online is where I work and live.

So I don’t. I won’t. I meet invective with invective, I name-call, and I demean. Because there’s just no dealing with them — so why try?

I realize I’m not helping things any, but there’s at least some entertainment value to be had from treating a prog the way a prog treats everybody else.