playa hater

If the blogosphere is anything to go by, the schism between left and right in Australia is deepening, getting more pronounced, or similar, as one reads is happening in the US. In the first example, Tim Blair calls his supporters over to see the weird lefties after jessculture had a shot at the young fellow who hugged the PM. For a little while it's a duck shooting gallery as they all come in a site they'd never normally visit and are appalled at the attitudes they find there. What - not all Australians support the PM? What's wrong with you people (DH: does this break the rules?). Then some of Jess's regulars ride in to shoot some holes in the arguments. But it's a no-win situation.

Meanwhile at that outpost of leftist tyranny, Larvatus Prodeo, some artfully juxtaposed photos of war dead along with some selected RWDB comments sets off another round of increasingly acrimonious baiting, with one commenter eventually banned.

Finally, at that institution of reasoned debate and libertarian idealism (is libertarian idealism a contradiction in terms?), Catallaxy, a slightly more restrained exchange of views although it's starting to get willing.

Did this level of intolerance exist in pre-internet days? How did the extremes of right and left get the shit off their livers? I guess it's only a small percentage of the population who are currently engaging in this increasingly hostile environment on the 'net, but surely it must spread and bust out? One thing we don't need in this country is violence at the polling station - we nearly got it with the rise of One Nation. But the polarisation seems to get gaining momentum.