Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
A common debating tactic in online arguments is to demand a "cite" -- some kind of textual backup to support one's assertions. Steve Kangas took that requirement seriously: Liberalism Resurgent is a massive collection of documents, footnoted articles and frequently asked question files that works as a kind of primer and encyclopedia for Usenet political thrashes. Indeed, if you search for Kangas' name at a Usenet archival site like DejaNews, you'll turn up more references to his Web site than to his own posts -- especially over the past year or so, when his posting frequency declined dramatically. Although articles in the right-wing press have depicted his Web site as obsessed with Scaife, only a fraction of it is directly concerned with the conservative financier.
"Yes, at times his articles indulged in suggestions of conspiracy, but for the most part they were just an excellent summary of what others -- from Chomsky to Galbraith -- had written," says A. Engler Anderson, a regular poster to the political newsgroups. "The Liberalism Resurgent site, despite many flaws, is a treasure trove of information, talking points and inspiration for anybody who has been drawn into a national political dialogue that is ever more framed by the conservative think tanks that Kangas fulminated against."
Milton Brewster, the founder of the newsgroup, alt.society.liberalism, says he first suggested to Kangas, four years ago, the idea of creating a "'liberal' Web site, in answer to the conservative Web sites then available on the Web."
"His Web site reflects his rational mind as well as his considerable research skills-- he and I both felt that political policy should be based on facts and careful analysis," says Brewster. "It is a mystery, to many of us who knew him, why he died of a gunshot wound in Pittsburgh."
Mystery indeed -- Kangas' online style did not convey a sense of imbalance. A typical post might include a straightforward refutation of a couple of specific points, followed by a pointer to articles on his site. Although, as one person who has reviewed his posts recently noted, "he wasn't above the occasional name-calling episode," Kangas was a model of decorum in the normal run of extreme rhetoric that characterizes Usenet political debates.
Even some Usenet posters who considered themselves steadfast opponents of Kangas were quick to note that he took pains to ground his arguments in facts and evidence.
"My impression of his posts that I've read since his death is that he had a good command of the language, made sure of his sources before making a claim and seemed to rely heavily on statistics, some of them outdated, to prove his points," says Kurt Nicklas, a programmer who is currently a prolific contributor to the ongoing debate over what did or did not happen to Kangas.
Both his friends and his foes say they saw some changes over time.
"Steve Kangas showed a lot of style in his early posts ... His style changed as time went on towards the end; where he used to attack the issue, he began attacking the person. It was becoming apparent that he was frustrated that not everyone could grasp what he saw as truths. His professionalism was slipping toward the end," says Duane Kelly, an Internet service provider operator. "Where at one time he would welcome someone with opposing views, he began to disdain them publicly as idiots, fools and ignorant."
Toward the end, the articles posted at Liberalism Resurgent do betray a pronounced conspiracy-theory tendency -- an alarming development from Kangas, who had previously attacked conspiracy theorizing. One of the last major articles posted on the site was a lengthy screed outlining CIA involvement in a conspiracy to concentrate wealth among the top 1 percent of the American population. Even those predisposed to support Kangas found themselves put off by his new direction.
"I do think that he had gone off the deep end a bit with his CIA conspiracy theories that he had come up with late in his life," says Loren Petrich, another Usenet regular.
Even so, the news of his death surprised almost everyone who had interacted with Kangas.
"I certainly would not have listed him as someone to actually go over the edge," says Brett Kottman, maintainer of a Web page devoted to Ronald Reagan, who adds that he was one of Kangas' "primary targets" on Usenet.
"In one respect I'm sorry to see that he's gone, both in the way that it happened and that he's no longer around to debate with," continues Kottman. "Even though I thought he was wrong, he was one of the few people who could muster a good enough argument in opposition to make you work to prove them wrong."
"I know one thing," says Kottman, "a long-time Usenet adage: 'It's all 1s and 0s' -- no longer applies."
The phrase "it's all 1s and 0s" is often used on Usenet to turn down the heat in a particularly nasty flame war and remind participants that all they're exchanging are bits and bytes. But when someone who spent years arguing about politics suddenly ends up dead, in circumstances that are inextricably connected to his political beliefs, it isn't just 1s and 0s. If Kangas' death means anything, it means that the hubbub of words on the Net -- the to-and-fro of argument, the claims, counterclaims, invective and oratory -- can't be disentangled from the flesh-and-blood world.
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