(Y)ou're unlikely to choose sound policies if you assume that anyone who disagrees with you is a depraved, corrupt imbecile. It's hard to learn anything from people you have completely written off. But it's also corrosive to any kind of community or dialogue to assume the worst about large numbers of people you've never met. It makes you less willing to try to take their problems seriously, and to try to figure out how they might be solved, or to try to understand what's driving them....You can't pass a law to make others act like this, Hilzoy writes. You can only take responsibility to do this yourself. To which, I say a loud "Amen!"
Hilzoy has been one of the voices of sanity in the blogosphere. She will be missed.
