BLOGS RIGHT AND LEFT

Fun! Thanks to Arthur Chrenkoff, I have just learned that some loony Leftist has put up a site called "Dissecting Rightism". It is a deliberate spoof of this site. As Arthur said to me: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The author has even gone to the trouble of copying my template -- which must have been a little bit of work. The "View Source" command gets you only so far and I don't think Pyra now circulate the original template on which mine was based. Anyhow, his work has just got him a link from me, though I doubt that any of my readers will log on more than once. The author of the site calls himself "Noel Chrotsky", which seems to be a reference to two very nasty Leftist hate-merchants -- Noam Chomsky and Leon Trotsky. I suspect that the author must be Australian. My site is a prominent one by Australian standards but is very small beer in any international comparison. I think an American Leftist would have spoofed (say) Powerline or LGF -- though I see that LGF does already have a Watch site.

This little episode has caused me to reflect a little on why Leftist blogs seem to have far more hits and far more commenters than conservative blogs do. Kos, for instance, gets around 400,000 hits per day compared to Instapundit's 200,000. I think the main reason is an obvious one: Leftist beliefs need a lot more propping up than do conservative ones. A conservative finds his views -- such as the belief that you have to be careful whom you will trust -- confirmed all around him every day, whereas a Leftist finds that his views -- such as the belief that no-one (except "Rednecks") is really evil -- constantly contradicted by events. So the Leftist needs all the help he can get to generate a distorted and selective view of reality that will keep him going. So he is far more active in seeking out supportive sites than conservatives generally are. And Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore have made a bundle out of catering to that need for confirmation of Leftist beliefs too, of course. The fragility of Leftist beliefs is also attested to by how abusive they become when questioned and the Stalinist way they do their best to keep all conservative thinking out of their university enclaves. Reality has to be kept at a distance by hook or by crook.

Generating a counter-factual view of reality takes some talent, however, so that also explains why right-leaning blogs seem to outnumber Leftist blogs by about 2 to 1. You have to be ingenious to defend Leftism whereas a conservative just has to point out the facts.

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