The BackSeat Philosopher debuted yesterday with a blog entry that should be mandatory reading for all political partisans. His entry earned him an Instalanche, and 84 comments.

I strongly encourage y’all to check him out – he may be a sporadic blogger, but I think he’s going to be worth watching, and reading.

Here’s a sample:

To My Fellow Democrats

We Democrats are supposedly the party of the therapists, the teachers, and the ‘relationship experts.’ If anybody would be proud of the title, ‘active listener’, it would be a Democrat. We’re the soft ones who understand where the other side is coming from and negotiate.

Many Democrats think that our patience and understanding are our weakness. “We don’t know how to fight like the Republicans,” we all told ourselves after Florida 2000. “We have to be more like them: tougher, meaner.” “We have to energize our base more.”

Actually, no. Our error is that we Democrats are far less understanding than we think we are. Our version of understanding the other side is to look at them from a psychological point of view while being completely unwilling to take their arguments seriously. “Well, he can’t help himself, he’s a right-wing religious zealot, so of course he’s going to think like that.” “Republicans who never served in war are hypocrites to send young men to die. ” “Republicans are homophobes, probably because they can’t deal with their secret desires.” Anything but actually listening and responding to the arguments being made.

Check him out. It’s worth reading, and refreshing to see cogent thought instead of strident slogans.

(hat tip to true blue)