Overdoing It

In recent weeks, there has been a nasty squabble between the To The People (http://tothepeople.com) and Fighting Bigamy (http://fightbigamy.typepad.com/) blogs.  See the links below:

http://www.tothepeople.com/2006/07/big-love-government.html

http://www.tothepeople.com/2006/09/royal-bitch-mad-i-called-her-royal.html

http://www.tothepeople.com/2006/09/hump-day-productivity.html

http://www.tothepeople.com/2006/09/i-heart-sandra-phipps-yes-thats-just.html

http://fightbigamy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/to_the_people_m.html

Now, as long-time readers of Taking The Gloves Off will know, I am an anarcho-capitalist wingnut and my opposition to Big Government and data tracking of Americans by government is well established and on the record through my personal participation in lawsuits, lobbying efforts, and national and international coalitions regarding individual privacy and domestic surveillance.

I am naturally in agreement with much of the underlying opposition to government databases of our personal information and not enthusiastic about the idea of a national database to track marriages – even for such a noble effort such as fighting bigamist frauds who prey on unsuspecting women. And no, that doesn't mean that I agree with men preying on women by fraudulently marrying multiple women at the same time in secret. It simply means that I do not believe that government should be involved with marriage at all – even down to the issuance of licenses and the granting of special rights via taxation breaks and discriminatory inheritance laws that reward people on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status, etc.  I am one of those crazed "separate marriage and state" libertarians that scare the Hell out of big government lovin' religious conservatives and culture warriors alike.  Now then, a privately funded effort to help fight bigamist men who secretly prey on women (see: http://fightbigamy.typepad.com/ for examples of these predators), would not be at odds with my own beliefs and I might even be willing to drop a few bucks in the kitty.  I am not opposed to the possibility of such an initiative, culled from voluntary submissions and public data, but not under the purview or control of the federal government.  Notice that unlike some of the individuals at To The People, I did not need to refer to anyone as a royal bitch in the process of writing this paragraph.

As those of us who have long been fighting the feds on privacy issues know well, Big Brother has been building a massive infrastructure with the purpose of stockpiling every bit of personal information they can procure.  A federalized marriage database would not be allowed to exist separately.  It would, regardless of intended purpose, be tied to the REAL ID Act infrastructure that is being built to link as much of our personal data as can be found and easily collated in one central location via local, state and federal databases.  Amazingly, the feds are even planning to purchase privately compiled databases of our personal information to add to the pile.  From a privacy standpoint, this government is extremely out of control – to say the least.

Back to the conduct of certain posters at To The People: resorting to nasty, juvenile insults by referring to a woman as a "royal bitch" on the basis of her attempts to eliminate a problem that has impacted her personally is not the most effective approach to expressing your viewpoint in a manner that actually leads at least to understanding, if not acceptance. Nor is it necessary.  There are better ways to communicate disagreement.  Now, I'm the first to admit that I'll get down and dirty when someone starts something.  As the saying goes, "don't start nothing, won't be nothing."  But that is not the case here as the nasty and completely unnecessary insults began immediately.

Some of the young guns at To The People need to take a second look at how they've presented their message and whether or not their relevant points were communicated effectively.

Calling someone a "royal bitch" for the crime of holding a differing view does not lend itself well to promoting a position. It distracts from the message and creates hard or hurt feelings.

In the end, by resorting to nasty insults that overshadow the message, liberty is not served, no problems are solved and possible converts are alienated.  By taking a principled and impersonal approach to the issue, To The People could have created a civil exchange of ideas and beliefs between itself and Fighting Bigamy.  Instead, insults replaced dialogue and now no one is interested in the message anymore.

What exactly has been accomplished?