This item appears in today's New York Times Magazine. The following passage jumped out at me:
[T]here's a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, is routinely vilified on liberal Web sites for supporting the Iraq war.) Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates. They are generally less interested in examining every side of every issue and more focused on eliciting strong emotional responses from their supporters.
This is hardly a fair-minded assessment, so I got to wondering why the author would be so biased. Then I looked back. Sure enough, this is how Democrats see it! Well, duh. Once again, we see the stereotype of the dumb (or at least the intellectually uncurious) conservative. Liberals are smart; conservatives are dumb. Liberals think; conservatives emote. Liberals debate one another in search of truth and justice; conservatives flock together. In fact, the success of conservatism as a political movement lies precisely in its willingness to debate, discuss, and think. It's liberals who emote (their hearts bleed even for murderers); it's liberals who act like herd animals (John Kekes calls their unexamined assumptions "the liberal faith"); and it's liberals who are too dumb to figure out how to win elections. How smart can you be if you keep nominating northeastern elitists—people whose patriotism is suspect, who believe in a Nanny State that punishes the productive and rewards the unproductive, who are hostile or indifferent to religion, and who think the United States is the world's problem rather than the solution to the world's problems? Liberals would do well to emulate conservatives. Can you say "nine of the past 14 presidential elections"?
Addendum: I always check Michelle Malkin's blog before shutting the computer off for the night. I see that she has a long post about the New York Times Magazine column I discussed. See here.
Now I DO see that... it seems like they're always whining about something. :-) But I don't see actual discussion among liberals. "Stupid Liberals" -- is that really just a social construct that we see the "other side" as stupid, while "our side" are the people that think, discuss and have intelligence? Instead of the volley of discussion, it seems like there is a brick wall between us and all we (either liberals or conservatives) do is bash our heads against the wall. There is no discussion (or communication) in either direction.