Occupy Ourselves: With Peace in Our Hearts and Power in Our Hands

[LeviCalledLeviticus]

3. Serendipity

To the community of Democratic Underground generally and the Peacemaking and Community Group specifically:

Let me start by saying that I'm very sorry to barge into your group this way. The last thing I want is to threadjack your post. But I have been looking for appropriate forums in which to make an appeal on behalf of a friend in the conservative blogosphere; given the spirit of solidarity which exudes from xchrom's post, I thought this would be as good a place as any to make that appeal. I would start a thread of my own, but I've not posted at DU before and you have to have a certain number of comments logged before you get posting privileges...

My name is Levi. I’m a law student at the University of New Mexico. For the past 6 years – since I was 17 – I’ve been one of a pool of resident liberal commenters at a conservative blog called Patterico’s Pontifications (a place some of you may know, by reputation or experience).

My early days at Patterico’s were spent picking fights – about the wars, about economic policy, about the overweening stupidity of George Bush… about pretty much anything. I still think a lot of my points were valid, but in hindsight… I was a mean little cuss. A lot of conservative sites would have banned me; the admins at Patterico’s did not. Over time, I came to realize that a core segment of Patterico’s community – including Patterico himself, and his admins – placed great value on discourse and the exchange of differing opinions. As contentious as my discussions with this group of (staunch) conservatives could be, I was generally treated with respect and approached in good faith. My rudeness and stubbornness were chastised, from time to time, but I was not banned. The community – the best segments of the community – understood that my attitude would change when I realized the true value of discourse. They were right.

I still spend most of my time at Patterico’s in contentious disagreement with the conservative regulars. But now – in light of the patience that they showed to me, and in light of a respect for differing opinions that I learned by their example – I try to approach every discussion in a spirit of reflexive good faith. A core group of patient conservatives taught me to respect dissent and value discourse. Obviously, this has not been my experience with all conservatives, or even most conservatives (any more than it has been my experience with all or most liberals). But to those who did teach me, who did tolerate me… to them, personally, I am very grateful; and I try my hardest to put what they taught me into practice.

I’m here today on Patterico’s behalf. He and a number of other conservative bloggers (including Erick Erickson of RedState and Aaron Walker of Allergic2Bull) have been the targets of an ongoing campaign of harassment. The harassment began when Walker (a lawyer) offered legal advice to Seth Allen, a liberal blogger who had become embroiled in a dispute with a man named Brett Kimberlin. Walker was then targeted for a wide variety of harassments; when Patterico blogged about the matter, he became targeted for the same harassments.

The most severe of these harassments is known as SWATing. A perpetrator makes a false phone call to police from a victim’s telephone number and claims that a violent crime has been committed or is in the process of being committed at the victim’s residence. This typically results in the deployment of an anxious, armed rapid-response team, which arrives at the scene expecting to encounter a violent suspect. The victim, of course, has no idea what is happening. Nor does the victim’s family. In the best case scenario, the end effect is traumatizing. The worst case scenario has not been realized, yet.

Patterico, Walker, and Erickson have all been victims of SWATing. The perpetrators, posing as these men, called police in the middle of the night and told them that they had killed their wives. Armed response teams arrived on their doorsteps without warning. Patterico had a phone in his hand when he answered the door. Here in Albuquerque, a man was shot and killed by police who mistook a black plastic spoon he was holding for a weapon. Patterico could have been the victim of a similar trigger-happy mistake.

Regardless of ideology or party affiliation, threats and intimidation have no place in political discourse. The purpose of the perpetrators – whoever they are, and this is not yet known – is a contemptible one: to squelch dissenting speech and silence strong voices in the opposition. I am writing to ask the community of the Democratic Underground to express solidarity with these conservative bloggers, who have been targeted with severe and despicable harassment for the simple expression of political opinions. Even if that solidarity is expressed in a narrow way – as sympathy for a plight, and a condemnation of those who would use such tactics to silence political opponents in derogation of the spirit of the First Amendment – it would mean a great deal to a number of communities and individuals on the other side of the aisle.

Opportunities to build bridges between conservative and liberal activists are few and far between in this political climate. The effect is exacerbated by structural barriers to communication between the two sides; as a liberal, I would not have heard of these SWATings if I did not know the victims personally. Patterico fears that the failure of the left-wing blogosphere to condemn these dangerous harassments thus far speaks to the destructive permeation of a tendency to partisan apathy – the same partisan apathy that he condemns in conservatives whose first instinct was to attempt to use the outrage sparked by these attacks for partisan political gain.

I think he’s wrong. This campaign of harassment began when a conservative blogger stood up for a liberal one. It would be a great step forward, a great victory for principled solidarity and discourse, and a great poetic justice if this campaign of harassment ended with liberal bloggers standing up for conservative ones. And the members of my community, and a number of others like it, a show of simple vocal support would be greatly appreciated and not soon forgotten.

Sincere thanks to anyone who got this far.

Levi