In calling bloggers "the new Stasi," Tina Brown painted with a broad brush.

But there are Stasi attitudes, in America and elsewhere. (The picture, by the way, is the logo of the real Stasi, the East German secret police who recruited neighbor to terrorize neighbor for 40 years, until the fall of the Berlin Wall. From EyeSpyMag.)

The problem with the world doesn't lie just in its tyrants. It lies in those with a tyrannical attitude. It lies in intolerance, which is the right of every man and woman, but which is antithetical to any notion of real democracy.

I received a full dose of this attitude today.

Following is the complete comment of a gentleman who later identified himself as Ken Watson from my own hometown of Atlanta, sent in response to my Tina Brown article:

The dismissal of the crimes of the Clinton administration makes the foregoing a bit inapt. Also, assholes reside on the left wing. Case in point...

Well, the great thing is that the rise of the blogosphere is the rise of freedom. I know that has the left in an uproar but utlimately, it won't matter. Lies and stupidity die with exposure to sunlight.

The future will come WITHOUT Democrats or other left-wing retards and won't that be nice?

I responded that freedom from your enemies is tyranny, not liberty. While identifying himself by name, Mr. Watson then added this:

Disagreement is NOT what we have seen, it's vilification, reactionary stupidity and bad faith. We will go forward without these people because they have
made themselve irrelevent with the above. The new environment of the blog keeps that brand of stupidity from passing for "dissagreement". Asshole.

I have no problem with Mr. Watson's politics.

I do object to his attitude, that anyone who disagrees with him is, in his words, an asshole, someone inhuman who deserves to be destroyed.

It is this intolerant attitude that is the lifeblood of all tyranny. When you dehumanize others, you dehumanize yourself, and strip yourself, by your own words, of those gifts America's Founders gave us.

When you dehumanize your political opponents, in other words, you become part of the modern Stasi.

The Stasi exists in every country, in every government, and it has existed throughout history. It does exist on the left, but in the U.S. today it is most prevalent on the right.

Those who whipped people like Mr. Watson into this attitude of intolerance, and who enlisted him by their own writing as an agent of whatever causes they profess, have committed a grave crime against his humanity.

It is the responsibility of everyone who writes, and who speaks, on questions of public policy, then, to be gentle, liberal, and humane when speaking of their opponents. Those who fail this test, those who lose their own temper, are inciting to riot.

The victims of this include those who hate and also those who become their objects, those who, like Tina Brown, get in the way of the hate instilled in mobs by their leaders.

We have seen this in Atlanta before. We have seen it in politicians like Tom Watson, and in the image to the right, which is the lynching of Leo Frank.

So, in the end, Tina Brown is right. There is a Stasi out there.

But it exists in all human hearts. I have a Stasi in me, Tina Brown has a Stasi in her, and Ken Watson has one in him.

It is the battle against this intolerance that is at the heart of all human progress. I battle it, and you must. Even if you've been seduced into it, you can still fight it.

You fight it by opening your heart.

Am I comparing Ken Watson to the men who lynched Leo Frank? Maybe. Look again at the pictures of lynching on any Web site. Look at the faces in the crowd. They could be anyone. They are everyone. But I understand that those people were whipped into their frenzy, as all such mobs are whipped up, by leaders.

And it's those leaders I condemn.

But we're going to let Ken have the last word.

Um, yeah, so? You are the one dismissing all criticism
of Bill Clinton (well, all within the criminal justice
system anyhow) as the bleating of "assholes". Sounds
like you are the one ill equipped for this brave new
world where the Dan Rathers of our unhappy race are
not able to do that sort of thing, for the nation at
large, with impunity. This weighted scale has been the
only thing keeping so-called "liberals" afloat in the
competition of ideas on which we humans (Am I one of
those? Even though I am a Bushie? No? 'kay.) rely so
profoundly, for many, many years. And it's over. It is
pretty funny (no, not "ha ha") in a piece that objects
to Tina Brown's ignorant insults of the blogosphere
that you start right in with ignorant inults of your
own. It is nothing new, of course, but I sometimes
read Jarvis because he is less prone to that sort of
thing than the Left at large and thought that a link
he provided would be similar. No such luck. Asshole.
If you would care to discuss specifics, let fly.
Somehow, I doubt you are up to it.

So nice that the fine art of rhetoric still has its champions.

By the way, Ken, you had me at "asshole."