It’s probably not a good idea to blog drunk. That impression comes from the Christmas Eve ravings on the Daily Kos, fresh from the Cheers & Jeers page of the Kosmonaut calling himself Bill from Portland, Maine:
I can think of no better way to spend Christmas eve than eating beans in the nude while swapping conspiracy theories with my friends. So tonight we're throwing away the usual tux-and-tails formality of C&J to simply let the mirth ooze forth spontaneously like boogers of change conga-lining through the nasal passages of freedom. I'll be staggering between tables, dispensing rum balls and deliciously ill-informed opinions.
Another Kos contributor with the byline Devilstower unspools his literary theory that conservatives live in a backwards fantasy land while liberals work to make a science-fiction utopia possible:
Science fiction and fantasy often share shelf space at the book store...[b]ut there is a difference between the two genres.
Fantasy looks for its answers in the past. That's when civilization was at its peak, when there was more magic and mystery in the world, when great deeds were done and heros lived. Science fiction looks to the future, when new knowledge and shifts in both technology and society will create fresh wonders.
In many ways, this break between science fiction and fantasy also defines our political parties. Clearly conservatives... look backward to a mythic time when people's behavior was defined equally by Leave it to Beaver and Stagecoach, one in which markets were free, women were passive, and all the colorful elves knew their place.
It's not hard to imagine them sitting off down rivers flanked by giant stone statues of a grinning Reagan on one side and a scowling Joe McCarthy on the other, past temples to Ayn Rand. Like the ancient Babylonians, conservative utopia only existed in some mythic period outside of normal time, but they are determined to endlessly circle that stagnant goal.
Progressives tend to have more of a science fiction outlook. Sure, we may want our Star Trek uniforms made from organically grown fibers, but who doesn't long for the time when we can discard old prejudices and break the stale roles that confine our lives? An end to war. An end to hunger. A world where the condition of your parents doesn't restrict the possibility of your life.
There's a reason that the word "progress" is bound up in progressive (and no, it's not meant to be ironic). Progressives are about making changes, moving forward, creating a world that's unlike the one we see around us with — hopefully — fewer of the flaws we face today.
