I get email notices of posts on Community and Flames. Community because that's where people post trouble reports and ask for my help. Flames because posts here are an indication of the social health of the boards, and heavy traffic in Flames is a sign of trouble. The heavy traffic in anti-Bowser posts on Flames that I found in my inbox this morning decided me to make a post, and yours, SDAI-Tech1, is a good place to hang mine.

I think it's unhealthy to fixate on one individual so much. In the past, intracommunity flame incidents have been triggered by specific misbehavior: Nadirs in the inescapable cycle of Ed's language, EP's Tourette Syndrome, ... I hoped for more examples, but I had to go back about ten pages just to collect those two. The rest of the flames that aren't anti-Bowser are directed against external parties. When I look at the Flames traffic for the last few months, it seems that anti-Bowser threads predominate. What's different about those threads is that they're much less about Bowser's behavior than his positions and ideas.

Bowser's own Middle East constituency turns on him
The Bowser syndrome
Just pity the fool ... and ignore him
It sounds like the key witness in the Sniper case saw reality about as accurately as Bowser
With Bowser we get an extreem leftist, the Village Idiot, the Town Drunk, and the Chief Pontificator all roled up in one poster

Part of it is just statistics, I think. Bowser's a prolific poster, on a par with Tom, and as you point out, that's because he religiously posts responses to Tom's every post.

But also, my impression is that the quality of Bowser's posts has declined recently: More strident, blunt, less well-argued and more like simply striking out. Maybe there's some external factor, but all we can examine are the factors here at the Zone.

What's changed here? As the drumbeat for war has increased in frenzy, the conservative majority has become more belligerent and combative, emboldened, I think, by the notion that their views are finally being shared by a majority of Americans. More willing to shout down contrary views and label them as "anti-American". More knee-jerk jingoism, as it seems that there's little room for debate, the die is cast, and all that's left is to root for Bush and our military. Bowser's trying to fight back all by himself, ratcheting up the rhetoric to hit back. The strain is showing.

You know what? I find that scary and depressing. We're playing out, in our Zone microcosm, events in the wider world.

I fear Pyrrhic victories ahead. I fear that we'll lose ourselves as we transform America from the doughty little republic that brought democracy and liberty into the world, into a global hegemony that must forever impose its will by force. I fear that the true American values won't survive the necessities of empire.

I see blatant wagging of the dog. You're in denial if you believe Bush's assertion that the economy's "fundamentals" are in great shape. Layoffs continue, consumer confidence & spending is down, capital spending is nearly nonexistent, corporate earnings are down (the recent stock market rally was fueled by companies simply meeting lowered earnings expectations rather than by any sign of improvement).

I think that you conservatives are using ad homineum attacks on Bowser to avoid having to address the substantive issues raised by his posts (however ineptly he's been expressing them lately).

The right and left despite anyone's claims to the contrary are friends here - I can have an equally deep discussion of views and ideas with all of the aforementioned and know they are very sincere about their beliefs. They are all to the last one much more civil in their posting skills even while disagreeing - which encourages a real give and take iunstead of a namecalling contest.

I know from private conversations with other members of the non-conservative minority here that it's becoming harder by the day to voice honest disagreement in the face of Rightist militancy. We're pulling our punches. Who would want the same treatment that you give Bowser? Why would those of us who love America but disagree with the current government's policies want to be branded "anti-American" and "traitors"? "Fool"? "Idiot"? "Leg-humper"?

There's a sense of danger here, and, as I said above, that danger is a reflection of the sense of danger in the outside world. Our Zone community is troubled to the same degree that the American community is troubled.

You're right, of course, everyone should lay off Bowser.

Of course. But think about the extent to which you're using Bowser as a whipping boy, the proxy for anybody who might dare to disagree with you. And consider that, as a proxy, Bowser represents other people you know, people who might be just a little afraid to try and talk to you right now.

Somebody needs to tell you this: You folks have gotten downright scary the last few months.

It isn't easy to speak up when it seems as if your society has taken leave of its senses, that the herd is stampeding because of an unusual alignment of its fears and emotions. It would take an almost superhuman discipline, but try to keep in mind that at times like these, voices of dissent are particularly valuable because it's so easy to follow the majority right off the cliff's edge. Listening isn't an obligation to agree, but it's a necessary duty. If you really consider yourselves patriots, you have a duty to consider the possibility that you're wrong and might be leading our country into disaster.

Doing right by America is more important than being Right.

--Robert