It’s not often that I agree with Jill at Feministe, but I certainly can’t take issue with anything she says here:
Releasing the private personal information of someone you have an online disagreement with is wrong. Threatening someone’s children because you don’t like their politics is wrong. “They started it” isn’t an excuse. Knock it off….
The left should act like it has a spine — but having a spine doesn’t mean not having a soul. And emulating right-wing blow-hards doesn’t exactly give us credibility or the moral high ground. Threatening and making sexual comments about peoples’ kids and families doesn’t give us the moral high ground. Similarly, attacking someone’s sexual orientation or physical appearance doesn’t give you the moral high ground. Stick to the issues at hand.
That sounds reasonable enough to me. And I am quite happy to criticize any on the right who would engage in such tactics as well, although I think my encounters with Mr. Medved, Mr. Shapiro and Ms Malkin probably serve to demonstrate that I’m not exactly disinclined to look the other way where the sins of the right – or at least, the nominal right – are concerned.