The Blogs the Borg - Six of One Half Dozen of the Other
By Michael Bresciani (04/24/07)
After several years of internet article writing and publishing I have
answered blog replies less than a half dozen times. I have never regretted
getting involved with the ranting but I have carefully followed and
scrutinized thousands of blogs.
What comes of carefully scrutinizing internet blogs besides a flaming
headache has become more apparent and predictable then I thought possible
only a few short pre-blog years ago.
Specialized blogs from internet SEO sites to motorcycle enthusiast’s blogs
are interesting only if you are interested in those particular topics,
boring if you’re not.
Trying to keep my finger on the pulse of America’s social and political
trends has forced me to stick close to blogs on news, politics,
conservative and liberal rants and religion. Even in these limited
categories there are upwards of a ka-zillion blogs and with newbies
popping up daily there is no end in sight. No insult intended to the blind
or to the decent blog sites but the blind need never fear that they have
missed something important.
I have indeed come across a few remarkably well pointed sites that could
actually add something to your knowledge that might be described as
useful. These unusual species of blogs are all too often the exceptions
that make the rule.
Star Trek creator the late Gene Roddenberry invented a menacing picture of
a race of people bent on assimilating whole civilizations and subjecting
them to something known as the collective. All the knowledge and culture
of each race is assimilated and blended with the other civilizations from
around Roddenberry’s imaginary inhabited universe. The Borg seem bent on
making what looks all too much like a universal blog a pervasive and
inescapable part of everyone’s future.
Sailing around endless internet blogs is to me all too much like being
assimilated by the Borg. Holding and voicing an opinion may be one of the
only American freedoms that are not now threatened, but perhaps they
should be…in my opinion.
One trend is impossible to miss. A clear distinction can be seen between
the liberal and conservative blogs that speaks to reaction rather than
content. In the conservative blog references are made to other sources
such as the constitution, the bill of rights, the Bible particular
statesmen etc. Liberal sources of reference usually end with the blogger
alone and that not to happily.
Another alarming trend impossible to miss is resorting to character
assassination and denigration when all else fails. The recent and
bewildering tragedy at Virginia Tech is one example.
When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that the tragedy was a direct
byproduct of a liberal and permissive society he was quickly labeled a
quack and cyber-tarred and feathered in the blogs.
Progressive (liberals) who generally ascribe to the idea that personal
morality does not conflict with public service were quick to use Mr.
Gingrich’s record of divorce against him. Words like “hypocrisy” and
phrases like “double standard” may not be vitriolic expletives but they
don’t need to be to bring even the weakest conscience under conviction.
Consistency is not one of the paragons of the progressive movement.
No big argument needed here only the question of whether left bloggers
ever took simple math 101. Let’s see. The end product of a situational
ethics anything goes society is what? Oh that’s it…anything goes. No
disrespect intended to the victims VA. Tech. but hasn’t “anything goes
been making its debut from Columbine to VA. Tech and couldn’t one or more
of the elements Gingrich says are the causes actually be responsible in
whole or part?
Let’s do a little more math. Could Cho Seung-Hui the perpetrator of the
Virginia Tech massacre possibly chosen another course of action if he were
guided by something other than the “anything goes” dictates of his own
mind? Could faith in God, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
respect for life, ethics courses, common sense or just about anything
other than his own mindset have changed the course of events? My simple
math says yes to every question. Liberal bloggers come to an entirely
different conclusion about both the alternate outcome and the people who
suggest it.
Perhaps the most disconcerting but constantly produced side effect of
liberal bloggers that I’ve seen in two years worth of observation is the
unfailing final resort to profanity and expletives when all else fails.
When the best wisdom can no longer be refuted the character of the person
or issue at question or the blogger is attacked. In an all out last ditch
effort leftists seem to fall back into profanity and name calling.
The right bloggers only recourse to this oft repeated sudden decent from
intelligent discourse to childish name calling is perhaps equally childish
but nevertheless effective I’m speaking namely of “sticks and stones will
break my bones but…”
I needn’t cite specific examples because of the ka-zillion blogs that are
using this tactic there are scarce few I would advise a peace loving and
relatively normal person to visit. In my personal ethical economy that
would be wholesale unkindness. It would be like inviting the American
public to line up for voluntary assimilation into the Borg collective.
Two years of checking the blogs have helped me to understand the meaning
of words penned by Statesmen Cullen Hightower who said “Wisdom is what’s
left after we’ve run out of personal opinions.”
Rev Bresciani
http://www.americanprophet.org
(Printer friendly version) Email: Michael Bresciani
