To Clarify

This is an example of the reason I dislike the whole idea of academics, and especially philosophers, blogging politics in a partisan way. It's something of an extreme example of the corrosion of discourse; but I think this sort of corrosion is that to which such blogging tends. Political faction corrupts reason, and even when it does not corrupt reason, it corrupts communication of reasons. It's my romanticism: I like the idea of academics improving the quality of discourse rather than contributing to its decay. This is not to say, of course, that bloggers should never talk politics or come down firmly on one side of the question (academics could never improve the quality of a discourse in which they never participated). But political factiousness is the most sordid part of politics, and the part that needs to be kept firmly on a leash.