The Political Online Community vs. the Non-Political One

I've been very fortunate to receive links from some of the big-time political bloggers to my post on the political session I attended at BlogWorld Expo. Hundreds of visitors came by to read what I had written. Some left comments. Some of the comments were unpleasant. I was pretty snarky to both sides in that post, but only the lefties became vicious.

Contrast that to the comments I received on my first Dove Real Beauty post.

I used to read Hugh Hewitt's blog several times a day. I even posted comments there, or rather, Jacob the Syrian Hamster did. Despite the fact that almost all of the commenters were conservatives, the comment threads were very abusive. I confess I did my share of abusing. Why is it that the political threads get so nasty and the others don't?

These days, the only political blogs I read regularly are Captain Ed and the Puppy Blender. Gateway Pundit was nice enough to link to me, but his posts are too harsh and his comments are too aggressive for me. I just don't want to spend my energy on things like that. Rose and howlls and Kelly and Justin and foxfier and all the rest of you bring energy to me when they leave comments. Participating in a forum where everyone is screaming at each other takes energy away. The difference in the tone of the sessions at BlogWorld really brought it home to me.

Update: Of course, immediately after posting this, I stopped by Gateway to see what was being said, looking for corroboration on my thoughts, found an interesting post at the top of his blog and left a comment. Help! I can't stop!