One of my big lessons from 2004 was that the tenor of political discourse in the blogosphere is acrimonious enough to warp my sense of perspective and my general objectivity. Reading too many blogs is like listening to too much Limbaugh. You get into an echo chamber and fall into a number of traps that I’ll go into some day.

The complementary lesson, though, was that this stuff is what sells for political discourse today. While the overt hatred isn’t quite there in the real world (with the notable exceptions of Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter), the discourse is still extraordinarily polarizing. I mean that, too… it’s the discourse that’s polarizing, not really the issues. Issues are framed in terms of hard positions that neither side can back down on. Here is my line in the sand and I will not cross it. Folks like Ann Coulter and Hannity make a living calling “liberals” (read: anyone who disagrees with them) everything from traitors to scum to “amoral sexual degenerates.”

Heidi and I once had a discussion while on a long road trip. We were talking about whether a small group of non-activists could get in a room and compromise in any way about abortion. I wonder if we simply asked how we could reduce the total number of abortions that we might reach better and different answers. Those answers would probably include a late term abortion ban with the exception of medical need or rape. They also might include the use of the morning after pill and increased contraceptive use for those whose religious beliefs allow it. You can see all the hot buttons that starts pushing and why it never seems to happen in real life. But, boy, it would be a better debate to have than what we do now: Yes or No.

So I’ve taken a step back since November to take a look at the issues unfolding and to evaluate them the way I used to before FatMixx and the eruption of the (real) blogosphere this last election cycle. It is my goal this year (and in the future) to do something to help this stuff get better. Political discourse can’t suck this much. It has to be better if we want a healthy democracy.

To that goal, I’ll try to spend time outlining policy like I used to do (for myself). I will try to post those here regularly, and with little editorialization. The first outline on social security will be coming soon.