Shark Watch Deuce Kay Four

at one point in time, I thought that I might be able to, by periodically showcasing one of the various blogs I read to amuse myself at work, give you an insider's perspective on the interesting things I use to fill up my brain while my fingers go F3 - F5 - click - Backspace - 6 - ALT - F - X - Enter - Enter, all the livelong day. well, that's not going to happen. why? because the various people on whom I rely for "interesting things" have all simultaneously jumped the shark.

case in point: "Amanda Doerty"
M.O.- pseudo-philosophical treatment of current issues from a closeted libertarian point of view.

back a couple of weeks (months?) ago there were some arguments going back and forth on this site about the Iraq war and other topics. but this blog started to lose me when its author complained that she wouldn't vote at all in the autumn because neither Kerry nor Bush shared her position on every issue.

waah waah. never mind that there are more than 2 candidates running for President. never mind that there are more public offices up for grabs than the oblong one. never mind that in the real world people have to prioritize their principles and make hard choices between candidates who don't exactly match their preferences. I guess that's the "I'm taking my ball and going home" kind of stand you get to take when you refuse to accept the fact that you won't be getting your way all the time.

and then she started complaining about welfare. apparently she's philosophically opposed to welfare. that's great and all, but it's not really much of a discussion point. when the whole argument boils down to "I believe in absolute property rights of individuals!" on one side and "I do not believe in absolute property rights of individuals!" on the other, I'm pretty sure that nothing productive can ever be accomplished discussion-wise. maybe nobody ever informed this blogger, but the whole reason that the right and the left don't agree is that they don't accept each others' premises. for those of you who understand anything about philosophy, you can't really get anywhere unless you can at least agree on some premises. perhaps someone needs to get ahold of Ms. Doerty and let her know that she should consider changing majors from philosophy to poli sci. whatever the case, if you like the kind of high school arguments that you used to get in where nobody convinces anybody of anything and a fair number of people just settle for name-calling, then you absolutely must check this out.

also, it is worth noting that "Amanda Doerty" may or may not be a real person. someone out there was spreading a rumour that Amanda was, in reality, 3 nerdy computer science guys who were running some kind of blog-related scam for unknown purposes. I can't really come up with any convincing argument either way, but it was compelling enough as a theory to keep me interested as the commentary started to wane. take a look for yourself and see. or don't. either way this blog has, only three months in, officially jumped the shark.