Fragile, lazy and clueless is no way to go through life.

Two out of three wins in the race to the bottom

There’s been a hoot-owl howling by my window now, for six nights in a row.

This morning, I happened upon a TV news clip of Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D., Virgin Islands) interrogating journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger during a House of Representatives hearing on the Twitter Files. Look it up. It’s worth watching.

During questioning, Rep. Plaskett accused Taibbi and Shellenberger of endangering the lives of Twitter employees by exposing the degree to which Twitter cooperated with federal agencies to blacklist individuals, and to suppress information that ran afoul of preferred narratives – many of which have subsequently been shown to be false. Democrats on the committee went on to accuse Taibbi and Shellenberger of acting as shills for conservative interests, rather than as journalists.

The Dems message? Nothing to see here folks – except that people who disagree with us are bad.

The left in this country, at least as it currently exists, is doomed. It's just a matter of time. When the hill that you are willing to die on is crowned by the completely illiberal notion that the power of the state should be used to blacklist dissent, no matter what ameliorating spin you put on it, the jig is about up. It's just a guess, but I suspect that the country we'll be living in two years from now is likely to be quite different than the one we live in now. And the left will have done it to themselves.

Just a few short years ago, the left would have lost their minds had journalists been accused wrongdoing for exposing government-sponsored efforts to circumvent the First Amendment. But now the left is apparently more upset with Elon Musk, Taibbi and Shellenberger, for exposing all of this, than they are over it happening in the first place. As bad as the right can be when it comes to suppressing inconvenient narratives, the left has put winner takes all on steroids.

We have, at the moment, two almost equally regrettable, yet clearly discernible, political options in this country - both driven largely by fringe elements. That's the lay of the land. The rest of us are left to choose between distasteful, diametrically opposed political and social sides. It’s a difficult choice - one that comes down to checking boxes.

Do we side with those who write off January 6 as a frat party that just got out of hand, or do we side with those who think that 1/6 was terrible, but that rioting in other American cities is not? Do we go along with right wing cultists who'll parrot any party line, or do we go along with leftists who think that it's acceptable for the government to attempt to circumvent the First Amendment, when it favors them?

Do we go along with those who insist that we are, constitutionally, a Christian nation, or do we go along with those who award a biological male an International Women of Courage Award? Do we get in line with those who believe that all government is bad, or do we get in line with those who believe that the reason government exists is to foist their view of the world on non-believers?

Do we take up arms for those who believe that any lifestyle beyond the norm is to be vilified, or do we take up arms for those who believe that it's the norm, itself, that should be vilified?

I can't answer any of the above for anyone else. For me, it comes down to simple math. Both extremes foment intellectual laziness and have enshrined cluelessness as a core value. But when push comes to shove, the right is at least generally less fragile. Fragile, lazy and clueless is no way to go through life. In this case, two out of three wins.

I don’t know that the right means the same thing as conservative anymore. So I’ll distinguish between the right and conservative for all that follows.

Many (though certainly not all) conservatives have a “live and let live” attitude about a lot of things. I don't personally know any conservative, for instance, who wants to ban all drag shows. I don't personally know any conservative who wants to ban all treatment for gender dysphoria. I don't personally know any conservative who thinks that racism isn't real. I don't personally know any conservative who thinks that America is perfect.

Many conservatives are able to discern shades of grey and defend nuanced positions. I've come to find that conservatives are generally more open to debate and willing to defend a position with more than a meme. There are certainly wingnuts on the right who are capable of none of the above. But most conservatives think they are crazy too.

On the left, it seems that you're either all in, or your out. Don't want 5-year old children to attend over-the-top sexualized drag shows? You must be some bigoted religious zealot. Don't want your kids being counseled about gender identity without you knowing anything about it? You must be transphobic. Think that criminals (without regard to race) ought to be in jail? You must be racist. Think that merit is a worthy metric for achievement? You must be an oppressor. Think that a fit and healthy lifestyle is a good thing? You must be ableist.

Perhaps the most offensive (to me, anyway) idea associated with team fragile is that challenging ideas through debate and discussion is tantamount to violence, while burning down a city block is not.

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine published his first column in a local paper for which I have written a weekly column for decades. It was a well-written and interesting column. But Beware of Reading Time With the Queens touches on a topic that's bound to wind up the woke. That, it did.

As has been my practice for many years, I befriend fledgling columnists. I believe that if you want more of a certain behavior, like articulate public discourse, you encourage it. I've supported liberals, conservatives and all manner of writers in between. I mostly don’t actually care what a writer’s opinion is, as long as they express it with wit and eloquence.

I used to encourage debate in my college classes as well. When a student disagreed with my take on a scientific topic, I'd award them extra credit to give a 20-minute rebuttal on why I was wrong and they were right. I guaranteed each student who took me up on the offer that they were free to say what they wanted, without interruption. My only rule was that I got to answer the first question during the Q & A to follow.

The best one of these presentations was from a young man who was a homeopath and disagreed with my stance that homeopathy was pseudoscience. It takes some cojones to stand up in front of 200 peers in a college classroom and tell them why the guy teaching the class is wrong about a subject that he knows something about. I don't know if the young man changed any minds, but he certainly earned my undying respect.

But that was then, this is now. These days, many people, especially on the left, are entirely too frail for debate. When I publicly congratulated the author of the Queens column for a good first piece, the usual suspects decided to go after me for supporting his effort. That's was just fine with me, because it presented an opportunity to challenge each of them to a debate. Unsurprisingly, there were no takers – unless posting a meme counts.

For the record, I don't give a damn about drag shows. I don't give a damn about drag shows at the public library either - as long as other groups get to use the same facility to promote what they want (I strongly suspect that the vast majority of those who support reading time with the queens would lose their minds over reading time with Matt Walsh). I don't even give a damn about all-ages drag shows. My kids probably aren't going, but different strokes for different folks.

But here’s where this gets into controversy worthy of discussion. Not all drag shows are created equal. Some drag shows, promoted as all ages, expose young children to highly sexualized behavior in settings where it's clearly inappropriate. Even so, if you think that's OK, bully for you. It's a free country. But drag my kids into it and you're going to have a problem that you can't handle.

It's been said that at either end of the social spectrum their lies a leisure class. But that's not the only thing out there laying in wait. It turns out that there's ample dumbassery at both ends of the social spectrum as well. The difference that I see is that these days many on the right are at least willing to allow discussion and debate, while the left claims that this practice is harmful.

Simple math. Lazy and clueless trumps fragile, lazy and clueless.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth