Cathy Seipp asked me last night why I link to Roger L. Simon’s blog if I disagree with most of what he says. My response was that I like Roger personally. I note that it seems likely that most people who link to Luke Ford don’t necessarily agree with a lot of what he says, but Cathy says he’s a special case.
It should be noted that all three of the above individuals also link to me, so I guess agreements to disagree can certainly be had.
Then I see a post on LA Observed today about some article on bloggers that slams Mickey Kaus, a moderate Democrat, for linking to right-wingers Ann Coulter and Lucianne Goldberg.
It’s funny, I never thought there ought to be an ideological litmus test for the sites you link to, or even the people you hang out with. Obviously there are exceptions — I wouldn’t want to hang out with someone in the Klan. On the other hand, I do have some friends who harbor prejudicial views, and I think the factor that allows me to keep them as friends is that they don’t act on those views, and in most cases realize their prejudices are unacceptable in polite company, or even my impolite company.
Anyway, everyone’s prejudiced to some degree. The Museum of Tolerance says so.
My belief in free speech is predicated on the notion that exposing all the ideas people have and talking about them is better than simply telling people to shut up and not engaging their ideas. On the Freshmen DVD, I talk about how many of my college TAs simply wanted to hear one opinion, and weren’t interested in trying to engage our thought processes to think for ourselves.
I link here to Movieguide and CAPalert, two sites which embody the far right wing of mainstream discourse in this country. I do so mainly for entertainment purposes, to expose their ignorance, but some would say that by giving them any exposure at all I’m somehow endorsing them.
I don’t know how many of you actually follow the links on my links page — it’s there as much for me as anyone, to simplify my daily net-surf — but I’m interested in your opinions. Does it bother you if you click on one of my links and find a site that expresses opinions vastly different from mine? Are you offended by any of the links? If you are, would you prefer I take them down (ain’t gonna happen, by the way, but I’d still like to know in theory)?
Someone at another site posted an Aesop’s fable about a man being defined by the company he keeps. Who on my links defines me — Roger Simon? Todd McFarlane? Vince McMahon? Harry Knowles? Alexander Cockburn?
[note: It's too much effort right now to put all the hyperlinks in this post, but every site mentioned here can be found on the links page]
Funny you should mention Aesop. He obsessively reads my site. Hey, you still don’t have a link to my site. I don’t only link to people who don’t share my political, social, ethical, moral and/or religious beliefs. Life would be dull if we only hung out with carbon copies of ourselves.
I’ll get on that as soon as my web guy returns from his cruise on a battleship (true story).
And yes, the Aesop thing comes from reading your site. No coincidence there at all.
I’ve followed some of the links and wouldn’t have found them myself without some clues (I’m a blog ‘virgin’!) I am, however, able to discern the content of the sites for myself. I mix with a great variety of people. Some hold views and opinions very much opposed to my own but they do not sway me from my own in fact it is only through such social contact that I was able to form my own views. So, LYT, more power to your elbow! as we say in the UK.
Oh, I didn’t mean that in a sarcastic tone to you. It’s funny that “Aesop” reads my blog every day now, yet I am still friendly with Luke Ford, so by reading my blog (according to Aesop’s logic) he is saying we are both good company.
I wasn’t implying you SHOULDN’T link to Roger Simon, of course; I was just curious why you did, since I think we were talking about only linking to people we agree with….which is a stupid policy and certainly not mine!
Hi cool site friends!