In my father’s favorite poem, Rudyard Kipling salutes those who can keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs. Yes, he ends his verse with “You’ll be a man, my son,” thus resulting in the 21st Century ignoring Kipling’s wisdom because he expressed these sentiments in the context of his own culture and time rather than ours. (Fortunately, actress Ellen Page just demonstrated that any woman who feels left out can join Kipling’s target audience by just announcing she’s a man, so maybe Rudyard’s return to respectability is imminent.)
I have to peruse a lot of websites and social media to keep Ethics Alarms current, and I can state without hesitation that people are losing their heads with alarming frequency. I just read an alarming series of comments, almost 200 of them, on an Althouse post. I regard Ann’s blog as as close to this one in tone and orientation as any other I have encountered, although as with Ethics Alarms, it appears that most of her left-of-center commentators have fled because she has tried to be fair to President Trump. The thread is scary, as are several others of late. Some commenters are saying that Joe Biden will never take office. Some are openly trying to organize an armed insurrection. With very few exceptions, commenters are resorting to snark and bitterness rather than substance.
I haven’t seen much of that here, and for that I am grateful, and of that I am proud. The provocative and extreme comments I have seen here have attracted moderating responses, and for the most part, while there is pessimism and concern, both of which can be justified, I have seen little hysteria.
Thank-you.
Ethics Alarms 
When there’s a crisis, do not doubt.
Run in circles; scream and shout!
Attributed not to Ogden Nash, but Herman Wouk, of all people.
FYI: Your link to the Althouse blog post is incorrect.
1. Thanks. 2. Fixed! 3. %#@!!&*(!
I rarely comment on the Althouse blog anymore, when I do I simply state what I want to state and and never go back thus ignoring anyone that tries to reply to my comment. It’s also really hard to have any kind of real conversation over there because any replies you post do not nest at all they just post at the end of the thread, it’s like wading through a pond of shit trying to find the single free floating sail boat that you set afloat and thee are a thousand other boats afloat there too. It’s simply not worth putting forth any effort.
Jonathan Turley’s blog at least nests replies a little bit but the left leaning and foreign agent trolls there inciting riot have led me to comment less there too.
Ethics Alarms is my #1 go to blog and I share it with others on other blogs, on Facebook and on my own blog.
Also, Turley himself does not engage the comments.
Michael T Ejercito wrote, “Turley himself does not engage the comments.”
True; however, he will converse with others offline via email once in a while. I think it depends on the topic and how the emailer presents the conversation. I’ve had a couple of brief private conversations with him, the most recent was one resulted in him editing a recent blog post where he jumped to a conclusion that might have been inaccurate, it appeared to be based on bias to me.
Turley and I disagree on some things and he soft-balls some things when he should hard-ball them but overall he seems to be quite reasonable to me.
I agree with you about Althouse’s comments section. There is no way to reply directly to someone so I rarely comment.
jvb
She pretty clearly doesn’t want arguments or discussions among commenters. Thus each comment tends to be a stand-alone manifesto or one-off zinger.
ALERT..I finally added your blog to the EA links. Another one of those languishing projects…I’m sorry it took so long.
By the way, I pleaded with Ann to include my blog in her links, and she just ignored me. Then she eliminated links entirely.
Thanks Jack.
To be fair to you as well Jack, you foster a good commentariat as well. I have been on this blog now for 4 years and it is one of the few blogs I frequent similar to Steve. The fact you have stuck to your guns and still struggle to provide an ethical and fair analysis is rare in this day online. You challenge your readers to maintain the high standard you set here and I for one appreciate you efforts. Thanks Jack
I agree. EA is an indispensable island of calm in a very crazy time.
Re: Elliott Page. Just this morning I was wondering if men are so toxic, why do some women want to BECOME men? And why are they dutifully praised for doing so?
As Gail King said on her morning show….”It is so empowering.” (Elliot’s new nonbinary self)
She didn’t reflect upon who exactly was the recipient of the power.
We are left to wonder I guess.
Poof!
Poof??
Nah. That’s when men want to change into women.
Instantly.
Could it be related to the shorter lines at the men’s room at the stadium….? And simpler wardrobe decisions?
Maybe she wants to make more money.
Of the sites I visit regularly, this is one of the best for reasonable discussion with a focus on issues. But, lately here, there seem to be, unchallenged, greater calls for violence and killing to resolve political differences. I’m surprised some of those posts were allowed to live on this site. One in particular that grates had this, along with other suggestions for violence: “That college professor can’t write yet more inflammatory articles against the white race if his car is stopped in the countryside and he is beaten to death.”
I struggle to fully understand signature significance, but does advocating murder for writing articles constitute signature significance? Does allowing that advocation on a web site?
A pat on the back is nice, but we should not puff up too proudly.