So, it's been quite a long while since I've blogged on DailyKOS. Over a year and half, I believe. In all honesty, I took a break from Kos for a long while because of how bleak and depressing everything I read was, and I admit the negativity was getting to me. I do comment from time to time.
But this isn't an “I'm back” post, necessarily, though I guess you could call it that. I only blog here when I feel I have something worthwhile to say.
Well, today is one of those days. I was given a rather harsh, ugly reminder about conservatives.
Well...today was a rather rough day for me, emotionally. I was rather badly triggered.
First, some background for greater context. I love my mother dearly. Now, she's not always been a perfect parent, but she did strive to raise me to be fair to other people. To treat them decently and civilly and not to judge, as any good parent does for their child. She never instilled hatred or prejudice in me. I strive to live my life with an open hand and an open mind towards others. I like to think that this philosophy has overall served me well in life.
Until today, that is.
I tried to employ this philosophy towards someone who friended me on Facebook. This person worked as an NYC carriage driver. And while they appeared rather conservative in their politics, I thought that I would give them a fair shake and see if I couldn't find some common ground and maybe we could go from there and build a rapport between each other. I mean, on FB I don't hide the fact that I'm an open, proud, unapologetic liberal. My blood bleeds blue. My thought was “Well...if she doesn't mind the occasional liberal meme on my wall, then the more the merrier! Let's see what we have in common. Maybe she isn't a mouth breathing knuckle dragger.”
We had what could be, at best, be described as an online “head nod” relationship. I commented on her posts and got the occasional like. I thought that she was maybe a pretty okay person overall. I mean, hey, we were both animal lovers and against the animal rights activist people.
...Big mistake.
Now, let me be clear on one thing. I am well aware of how vicious and awful the Republicans are. Boy, am I ever. I am by no means naïve to how cruel, savage, vicious, mean spirited, and flat out sociopathic they can be. I admit that conservatives make me, at best, cautious and wary, but again, my mother's lesson of not generalizing went through my head.
So, two days ago, this person (she's a pro-life Catholic, of course) posted a Grumpy Cat Meme that said “Save the Planet. Kill yourself.” This was in response to so called “population hand wringers.” In other words, this woman doesn't believe overpopulation exists. Note, there's got to be some kind of cognitive dissonance here because she must think that we as humans can just continue to breed into perpetuity without any consequences to the planet, but I digress.
Anyways, I politely stated that I thought it was rather callous to tell those of us who were childfree and who were concerned about human overpopulation and the environment was callous and not funny. I assumed that perhaps we could have a polite discourse and agree to disagree on certain things if it came to that.
What I got instead was the most vicious, cruel castigation I've ever received from someone. Because I dared to voice my opinion, this woman then proceeded to tell me that I would be better off dead because I didn't want children and that I should kill myself if I cared so much about the environment. She apparently thought that I didn't have the right to take up space, and that I might not have friends that I love and family that might want to have me around.
I. Was. Flabbergasted.
In middle and high school, for years, I was mercilessly, savagely tormented and bullied by my peers on a near daily basis, day in and day out. The experience left me emotionally crippled and with a profound distrust of people. It took me a long time for the emotional and psychological wounds to heal into scars.
But my bullies, no matter how vicious they were, they never, ever explicitly told me to kill myself. Not once. So even they had more standards of decency than a supposedly grown adult woman.
For years, I struggled with suicidal ideation. I still do, but my mental state is pretty solid for the time being, thanks to some wonderful, awesome, supportive people in my life I'm privileged to call my chosen family. In my senior year of high school, I spent six days in a mental ward after a severe breakdown when I at last cracked under the strain and could endure no more.
I have to wonder just...why? What makes it remotely acceptable in someone's warped, deranged brain to ever tell someone that they should kill themselves? I bore this woman no ill will whatsoever. I did my best to be civil and friendly towards her, only for her to brutally kick me in the gut with a steel toed boot for no good reason.
All because I had the nerve to voice disagreement with her.
Now, call me crazy, but I've had people disagree with me before, some even strongly. But it has never, ever, ever occurred to me to tell them that they should commit suicide. I would never think to sink so low as to do that to another individual, no matter how upset I got.
I had thought of answering her with ruthless castigation, filled with angry swears and calling her a raging hypocrite, that she was no better than the crazy animal rights activists who were fond of telling people to go off themselves.
I also considered PM'ing her and gently, respectfully, but firmly telling her that I was baffled by her casual cruelty to me, and that I felt like I'd been slapped in the face for no rhyme or reason. I thought of trying to appeal to her better nature since I knew she had a seventeen year old daughter. I thought of asking her, what if she, her own daughter, struggled with mental illness or suicide ideation? Would she think it was okay or acceptable for another kid to tell her child to go kill herself? Or would she be outraged? And if she didn't think THAT was acceptable, I wondered what made her think that it would be acceptable to say to me, a virtual stranger that had done her no harm.
But then, another friend pointed out that people like her believe that mental illness is some kind of character flaw.
In the end, I neither responded to her in anger nor sadness. I simply reported her awful comment to Facebook and quietly blocked her. I decided that I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of any kind of response, since I was sure that it would only earn me more condescension, sneering derision, or mockery.
I'm still shocked and hurt. And today, I've learned an ugly lesson. Never, ever trust a conservative to behave in a humane and decent manner. They will go right for the jungular. I will now cast even a harsher eye on the Republican side than I do already, because I've been subject to their base cruelty when I didn't do a single thing to earn it. I am, quite simply put, done. Just...done. When a conservative friends me, I will block them. I will coldly shut them down without mercy. My hackles will go up quicker.
I will from now on assume that any conservative I meet is a cruel, unrepentant sociopath.
And if one thinks that carrying that assumption isn't fair or too harsh or too judgmental can bite me.
Because I, sadly, have yet to be proven wrong.