On Friday I met with an acquaintance who is a prominent business blogger. We had lunch, and we chatted about blogging and the internet in general, and how it has changed both of our lives. At one point he asked me "is there a middle in the political blogosphere?" I averred that while there was one, it was pretty darn small. He then went on to ask if the lack of a middle meant that two solitudes; two echo chambers, had come into play. Did I even read the right wing blogs (answer: not much.) The question, of course, implicitly suggests that compromise, a middle - a connsensus is good and that extremes are bad.

It's a common question, and here's how I answered it.

I don't have anything to say to people who think that torture is acceptable.

I don't even have anything to say, beyond heaping moral opprobrium, on those who want to "debate" whether or not torture is acceptable. I don't have anything to say, nor am I interested in talking to people who believe in "free speech zones". I don't have anything to say to people who think it's acceptable to abrogate the fourth amendment by allowing the government to spy on citizens without a warrant from a judge based on probable cause and listing specifically what they're looking for. I don't have any time for people who want to argue that invading another country that didn't threaten the US, and selling that invasion based on lies was acceptable. These people aren't "misguided", they are evil. There is no point of connection. There is no middle where we can meet and discuss because everything they stand for, I abhor (and I daresay the reverse is true). They are authoritarians who want to see their government kill, maim and torture in their name. They want to destroy the parts of the US constitution they disagree with. They are fundamentally against the tenets of western civilization that have grown up, not just over the last 50 years, the last hundred years, but pretty much the last thousand years. It's not just that they want to end the seperation of church and state, or limit free speech - they want to end habeas corpus, a right that in various forms goes back about a thousand years.

There's nothing to say such people. There is no point where you can debate. To even debate something like "should we torture" is amazing to me - how have we come to have this conversation? How is it that the side arguing for torture isn't consigned to the "too crazy to even listen to" camp? Why are we arguing about whether Habeas Corpus should be reinstated?

The only reason one reads such moral cripples is the same reason intelligence officers in World War II would read Axis propaganda - so you know what they're up to, and what they're trying to sell to the part of the population that has become addicted to the poison swill they market as "patriotism" and "strenght". Their vision of America is of a land without any liberty except the right to carry an assault rifle and salute the Leader.

So no, there isn't a lot of room in the middle any more, because you don't compromise with evil, and these people are the cheerleaders for torture, for the gutting of civil liberties and for unjustified, unprovoked, war. Nor is this something that is limited to the blogosphere - polls show that the "middle" in American life is disappearing. And, in fact, what is happening is that independents and Democrats are moving away from the right wing. The undecideds are deciding - and having seen what the right really wants, what it really believes in - they're disgusted.

The mushy middle is evaporating, and good riddance to it. You can have, as the major Republican candidates want--less civil liberties, an enlarged Guantanamo, an endless war and a lousy economy, or you can stand up and say that this isn't a vision of a world any decent human being could ever get behind. You can say "fear doesn't work on me. I won't give up my country, my constitution, my rights, for the illusion of safety. I stand with Benjamin Franklin and with Franklin Roosevelt in knowing that the American Republic can only be kept if we don't give in to fear."

Some periods in history don't allow the moral luxury of standing aside. This is one of them. Stand for something, or know that in the great struggle for America's soul you were a bystander.