The discrepancy is probably because the Left has long appointed itself the guardian of the freak-minting industry. It is a prerogative that is jealously guarded. Thus Glenn Reynolds could receive this insulting email calling for civility without the slightest irony. “I cannot emphasize this enough: your brand of public discourse is hurting our country. It us poison. So fuck you, you GOP utensil, and fuck your mother for bringing you forth.” Get it Glenn? So too could Ann Coulter be threatened by protesters at the University of Ottawa to prevent her from making a “hate speech.” S**t flows downhill. There is no mystery to that. It’s Leftist physics.

But the unintended consequence of uncontrolled and systematic distortion; the unforeseen effect of shipping funhouse mirrors everywhere is that sooner or later frustrated audiences put on corrective spectacles…

One of the most important challenges of the 21st century will be to find some way to get at the approximate truth. The current crisis is to a large extent a crisis of information. Whether what we wish to know is the value of the liabilities of a financial system; whether carbon-driven AGW exists, whether “reforms” are affordable; or whether the Russians will comply with the proposed drawdowns in nuclear weapons information is so important that gross distortions are impossible to accept. We can live in a world with some funhouse mirrors, but we can’t live in a world where most of them are.