As the key to American politics for at least two decades (and arguably right back to the sixties), cultural polarization deserves serious thought and study, not perpetual denial.

So says Stanley Kurtz, in a post linked by Glenn Reynolds for other reasons.

I'm a bit more concerned with the Culture War than most bloggers, as it often seems to me that I've spent four years perpetually avoiding the very denial Kurtz describes.

Kurtz goes on to observe that if Giuliani doesn't win the nomination, "it will be because the culture wars did him in." That is certainly true. As more than one commentator has observed, the election will be won by whichever party does a better job of not being captured by its "base."

I'd go further than that, and venture that the election will be won by whichever party does a better job of appearing to not be captured by its base. And beyond that, by whichever party does a better job of portraying the other party of having been captured by its "base."

In that regard, I think the Democrats have been doing a better job learning their lesson. (Or at least doing a better job of appearing to have learned their lesson. Running nominally pro-war centrists was part of their strategy to take back the House, and it worked.)

But the real lesson that ideologues hate to learn is that most Americans do not like the bases, because they're shrill, vehement, ideologically-driven people prone to hurl invective at anyone who shows the slightest sign of deviation from what they believe. I got into a bit of a debate the other night with a left wing ideologue, and I ended it by joking that the Democratic Party obviously misses me, and that it's probably time for me to switch my registration back -- so I can go from being a "RINO" to being a "DINO" again.

He did not like it. He was seriously upset at even the idea that someone with views like mine could legally become a card-carrying Democrat, and no force on earth could stop me if I wanted to.

It's as if I am a traitor to the Culture War without even knowing which side I am betraying. The more I talk about the Culture War, the more I see it everywhere, and the more resolutely opposed to it I become. I don't care that much about which side I oppose. Mainly, I wish they'd end the tyranny against the individual, especially in the form of personal ad hominem attacks.

I saw a classic example this morning when I read about left-wing attacks on Iraq-embed reporter Matt Sanchez. (Via Glenn Reynolds.) Antiwar activists who have never been to Iraq and have no idea what they're talking about take issue with the reporter's sexual preference -- as if that has affected his reporting. (I don't have time for sexual preference research right now, so I'll treat this nonsense as a "so what?")

Hmmm.....

You'd think that after four years of writing a Culture War blog I'd be getting ready to hang up my cleats, but as the old Al Pacino/Sopranos saying goes, "Every time I try to get out, they draaag me back in!"

Which is my way of saying that I'm finding it impossible to ignore what Glenn Reynolds called the blogpost title of the week -- "Gaydar Love" -- in the context of what ought to be called left-wing "Gaydar Hate."

So I'm wondering....

Might the "Gay Bomb" which the military refused to develop back in 1994 might be an effective weapon to deploy against leftists who impute homosexuality to their ideological opponents and then go ballistic over it:

Let's think this "offensive ... almost laughable" option through as a moral proposition, applying the most progressive, libertarian, gender-orientation accepting, peace-loving standards possible:

Gay Bomb, good or bad?

Non-lethal = good.

Homosexuality is an increasingly accepted sexual orientation and lifestyle. Not that there's anything wrong with that = neutral.

If homosexuality is OK, then the real problem with the Gay Bomb is not that it would reduce male soldiers' inhibitions and encourage them to boff each other, but that it is intended to cause shame. Shame about gayness = bad.

But in an increasingly open, GLBT-tolerant society, is the shame and disruption of unit cohesion then simply because of unrestrained, indiscriminate sexual activity, regardless of its orientation? Shame about sexuality = bad.

Thus, Crittendon links this point from Hot Air:

The "gay bomb" works best against those enemies least tolerant of gays -- you'd think that element of poetic justice would mitigate its offensiveness somewhat.

For starters, the left is given credit (by itself) as being the Far More Tolerant, even The Officially Certified. Officially, intolerance of homosexuality is Not Tolerated, so anyone who is on the left is entitled to an automatic presumption of non-bigoted status. The mere assertion of Support for Gay Marriage is seen as the equivalent of an official badge, saying "No One Is More Tolerant Of Gays Than I!"

However intolerance of non-comforming homosexuals is not only tolerated, it is mandatory. That's because homosexuals who disagree with the party line are seen as ungrateful, but because it is disconcerting to credit them as actually hating the left, they must be seen as being guilty of hating themselves. (An easy twist to make considering the premise that Only The Left is Officially Not Bigoted.) And if someone hates himself, it follows according to leftist logic that it is OK to hate him. Perhaps then he'll come to see the error of his ways, and come back to the left, for only there is he allowed to love himself.

But now we come to the Hateful Right, and it gets very tricky, because while there is such a thing, the fact is that the actual homo haters on the right are far fewer in number than commonly believed. Sure, they've got some web sites and a few organizations which can be depended on for the statements that fuel the left, but a serious and growing problem for the left is that many conservatives really don't give a rat's ass about other people's sexual preferences. I mean, when even a notorious "homophobe" like Rick Santorum pointedly refuses to fire an outed gay staffer, you know you've really got a problem with the ordinary conservative rank and file. On top of that, conservatives tend not to see homosexuality as ideological treason. Rather, those who are squeamish would tend to see it as an individual's problem -- one which some of the "homophobes" might think deserves some sort of religious "cure" but one which very few would link to ideology.

On top of that, it is almost unthinkable that any conservative would consider a left-wing homosexual to be a traitor to his penis the way the left does about a right-wing homosexual. There simply is no counterpart, as conservatives tend to abhor identity politics in general, and in any event would never consider homosexuals to be "theirs." True, some think that homosexuals should be "property" of the left, but even these people would not see a left-wing homosexual as a traitor to the right.

My thesis is that the left wing is far, far more intolerant of nonconforming homosexuals than the right, and thus more vulnerable to the effects of the "Gay bomb."

Or, well, at least a modified form of the bomb. I notice that the original news reports Crittenden sites date back to 1994. Hasn't our scientific technology advanced since then? Wouldn't it be possible to come up with a bomb which makes people not only gay, but also conservative?

Or is surgical precision in the Culture War too much to hope for?