{"id":2824,"date":"2002-08-11T11:46:34","date_gmt":"2002-08-11T11:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=222"},"modified":"2002-08-11T11:46:34","modified_gmt":"2002-08-11T11:46:34","slug":"anonymity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2824","title":{"rendered":"ANONYMITY"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u0092ve read a great deal about anonymity in the last few days; mostly critical to be sure. From comments on Electrolyte<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Regarding blog pseudonyms: I don’t like ’em. I try not to make an issue out of it, and I know people of all stripes who feel they have good reason to use them. But it bothers me. When I’m in a dispute with someone who calls themself “Pericles” or whatever, I feel very much at a disadvantage. Patrick Nielsen Hayden is a real person; you can look me up in the phone book, you can accost me in front of my office building, you can find me at conventions and public appearances. “Pericles” is a drive-by with mirrored glass windows. (comment by Patrick Nielsen Hayden)<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Den Beste<\/a>: <\/p>\n

When someone won’t even reveal his name, it should set off alarm bells unless he provides a legitimate reason for keeping it secret. If someone is confident about what they’re saying, they should be willing to own up in public to holding those opinions. A person who debates anonymously may not be wrong, but you should certainly be far more skeptical about anything they say. <\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, to be blunt, I think these comments are directed here<\/a> and here<\/a>, more than at me.
\nBut they do give me pause to reflect, and to try and explain why I chose to be, and for now, still choose to be anonymous.
\nFirst, because one of the reasons I started this blog is to try and reconcile some of what I perceived to be contradictions in my own politics. How can I have dinner with Jeff Cooper (that<\/a> one, not the law<\/a> one) and still send money to Amnesty International (although I\u0092ve stopped in light of their recent piss-poor performance in the Middle East)? How can I believe in progressive taxation, and be opposed to teacher\u0092s unions?
\nOne of the features of modern political life (that I continue to beat on in the vain hope that it will get up and walk and talk, thereby dazzling my readers) is the fact that we are first and foremost formed into narrow political teams. We wear our team colors, and sing the fight songs from scripts handed us by the marketing division of the team that\u0092s playing today.
\nThe problem is that there is no \u0093America\u0092s team\u0094 any more (Sorry Jerry Jones), even though pretty much every team would have us believe that secretly, it\u0092s really them.
\nAnd, like a lot of people, I belong to more than one. So when I talk to my progressive friends, it\u0092s hard to address shooting or gun rights without triggering yet another dead-end disagreement. When I\u0092m with my friends who shoot, I really don\u0092t spend a lot of time debating environmental policy, because I\u0092m not going to convince them to look beyond what Rush has said. It\u0092s simpler that way. When I\u0092m with my friends who work in politics, I don\u0092t spend a lot of time dwelling on the failures of our electoral system, because no matter how diplomatically I couch what I say, I\u0092m talking about them and their livelihood.
\nNow the reality is, that I lose and they lose in that, because I can\u0092t express my full self\u0085can\u0092t as it were come out of the closet\u0085and they don\u0092t get their worldviews broadened. It even feels kind of cowardly right now as I write it.
\nBut the reality is that our political lives are so Balkanized (meaning that we passionately defend and exploit the boundaries in the narrowly fragmented landscape) that I have to question whether it\u0092s worth it to be engaged in battle every day, and so I quietly hold my tongue.
\nThis page is where I get to speak out.
\nThere are other petty practical issues as well. I contract for a living, meaning that like an actor, I need to audition for work several times a year. (did I mention that I\u0092m looking for consulting right now?) Getting and not getting work can seem capricious and in fact is highly political. Which means that I need to exercise care not to overtly offend those who put bread on my family table.
\nAnd on this page, I get to offend them. Like almost everyone else in the Blog-verse, I\u0092d love to make my living opining, and so be free to stand behind my words. I\u0092d also love a pony, as long as you\u0092re delivering on wishes\u0085<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u0092ve read a great deal about anonymity in the last few days; mostly critical to be sure. From comments on Electrolyte: Regarding blog pseudonyms: I don’t like ’em. I try not to make an issue out of it, and I know people of all stripes who feel they have good reason to use them. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}