August 22, 2009

Liberals out-organized conservatives in blogging, but conservatives are doing better with Twitter.

Or so the liberal bloggers say.
“Conservatives are always good at pushing that one concise message. The death panels are easy to tweet. The explanation for why there are no death panels and making that explanation takes much more explanation. You can’t do that on Twitter.”
So their ideas are sophisticated and fact-based, while their opponents throw around ideology and the fantasy that supports it. That's the politico's delusion, in a nutshell. But I've got to laugh at the way blogging now represents the in-depth development of ideas. I'm just too deep for Twitter. I'm a blogger. LOL.

***

That politico's delusion reminds me of Skeptoid's explanation for why he won't debate pseudoscientists anymore:
The pseudoscientist ... can say whatever he wants. If compelling rhetoric would benefit from any given argument, he can always make that argument. Pseudosciences have typically been designed around compelling rhetorical arguments. The facts of science, on the other hand, rarely happen to coincide with the best possible logic argument. Having the facts on your side is not an advantage, it's a limitation; and it's a limitation that's very dangerous to the cause of science should you throw it onto the debate floor.

23 comments:

Laura(southernxyl) said...

But the death panels were put out on Facebook, not Twitter.

I think somebody needs to get his technologies straight.

: /

rhhardin said...

Replace decisions that are individual and nuanced with fixed decisions that pay off lobbies.

Then the guys in charge eat well.

The explanation doesn't seem to take much space.

bagoh20 said...

So pseudo-intellectuals don't like like pseudo- scientists?

There's is surely enough bullshit for everyone.

bagoh20 said...

Nothing wrong with being concise: E=mc2.

Alex said...

I was reading the comments over there. Once again the #1 liberal issue is "Bush did torture, non nom nom".

reader_iam said...

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

(68 characters to spare.)

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Politics has little to do with reality.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Organization? You should be able to do that just as well on Twitter, and from my experience, lots of Tweets are links to long blog posts or articles of substance.

Liberals are all about thinking the same thing. THAT would be a reason for them to avoid Twitter.

Who wants to follow a bunch of people who all say the same thing all the time? You can pretend to have an independent opinion with a bullshit packed blog post, but not a tweet.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Hmm, liberal blogs thrived with a conservative president when blogs were new.

Now the new medium is Twitter, and there's a liberal president.

Opposition energy is what explains this, not the limitations of conservative arguments.

Kev said...

(the other kev)

Is brevity the new hate speech?

First rule in sales: The more the salesman talks, the worse the deal is.

v/m: techout. Techout, baby!

Bruce Hayden said...

I still can't figure out Palin and Facebook. Blogging I would have understood. Same with Twitter. She seems to be blogging more than anything.

Oh well - go with what works.

tim in vermont said...

I have to agree with John Lynch. The technology is secondary, though nice. If the dry tinder is lying about, it can be lit with a match or a lightening bolt, either way it's gonna flame up.

As long as you can let people know that they have an option to help a cause, one way or another, by showing up at a certain time, the rest is existing political energy.

Liberals seem to think that the way you produce a crowd is to charter buses, keep lists of like minded people, and work your list and load your buses.

Conservatives jump on any soap box and attempt to persuade with ideas.

Dan said...

Kev said: "First rule in sales: The more the salesman talks, the worse the deal is."

No wonder Obama is talking so much about Obamacare...

MagicalPat said...

“Conservatives are always good at pushing that one concise message."

I didn't realize it was conservatives that came up with "Bush Lied Kids Died"

TosaGuy said...

Have liberals forgotten they are the king of the bumpersticker and all the intellectual 'heft' those statements carry?

Twitter is a bumpersticker in digital form.

-----------

Obama's base of college kids and affluent urbanites are indeed up with technology and demonstrated it during the campaign. Problem in the health care debate is that the issue is only abstract to most of these folks while it is a very real issue that will have a significant impact on the lives of most of the plan's opponents.

It is not an issue of use of technology, it is an issue of motivation.

Bob Ellison said...

I keep hearing Obama and his cadres flapping their gums about the "death panel" lie...but I first heard about it from Obama and his cadres. The real complaints flying around are mostly of the substantive variety.

John Fischer said...

Commenting is the only medium with any depth anymore.

tim in vermont said...

Joe,
You are right. The left claims to have responded to the "death panel" argument, but I have never seen one respond to Obama's statements on the subject of a team of "ethicists, doctors, scientists" who would decide matters that were too difficult to be decided in the political arena.

They prefer to respond to the straw argument that end of life counseling is the whole of the death panel imbroglio.

From Inwood said...

Bloggers To Twitterers: Drop Dead!.

(Apologies to the NY Daily News from the 1976 campaign.)

Bruce Hayden said...

They prefer to respond to the straw argument that end of life counseling is the whole of the death panel imbroglio.

We see that here a lot. It is typical liberal technique, changing the debate to a straw man, that they then go on to demolish, and after awhile, everyone assumes that the straw man was the original point.

My problem is when I see those on the right buy into it. And we have seen that by much of the commentariot concerning Palin's Death Panel entry. They bemoan that she tarnished the debate with her unfortunate meme, then go on to make just the same point that she was trying to make.

Brian said...

The right wing conservative wackos did nothing but invent lies to the American people about so-called "death panels." The bill said nothing of the sort. They were wholly the imagination of Sarah Palin.

And, besides, the provision has been taken out anyway.

EnigmatiCore said...

"Barlycorn, John said...
Joe,
You are right. The left claims to have responded to the "death panel" argument, but I have never seen one respond to Obama's statements on the subject of a team of "ethicists, doctors, scientists" who would decide matters that were too difficult to be decided in the political arena."

They might even decide John Barleycorn Must Die.

/staring at empty pages, centered 'round the same old plot

EnigmatiCore said...

Brian- what a most excellent comment. Bravo!