Uh...Hi!...ummm...this is my first meeting but let me just...mmmm...my name is Catilinus and I'm a purity troll. We, I, I mean I didn't realize it until lately, but...er..I must've always been a purity troll.
I didn't know I was a purity troll for most of my life. I had a mistaken definition of what it was. I erroneously thought it meant someone who took their ideas from a fixed ideology-preferably one turgidly documented in book form by a 19th Century idealist who was over-stimulated on caffeine. How beknighted I was.
Thankfully, in thread after thread here at DailyKos the true meaning of purity troll has been staked out and clearly orchestrated for the community by concerned "purity troll" denouncers.
Oh, and the vicious rumors of late that "purity troll" denouncers wish to have us purity trolls undergo the process of forehead tattoing is incorrect and stems from a biased misreading of this quote.
Maybe we ought to follow the lead of Tarantino's latest film Inglorious Bastards and [henna] tattoo "PIE IN THE SKY DEM.I HELPED DENY 33 MILLION HEALTH CARE" on the forehead of this diarist, Dennis Kucinich, and on every DEM Rep or Senator who has voted against this bill should this bill go down to defeat
The author of that diary
on the rec list kindly updated it with the explanation that it was not, I repeat was not, a call to violence on us purity trolls.
Anyways, I began to suspect I might be a purity troll when I could no longer ignor the fact that people I SOMETIMES agreed with questioned presidential policies supported by people I SOMETIMES disagreed with & were labelled "purity trolls" time after time.
Hmmmm...I had to admit to myself that I also questioned those policies. Worse, some of those policies I actually wanted to change-I more than suspected they were wrong.
I even lied to myself. Time after time. I repeatedly told myself that I wanted the president to succeed, the Democratic Party to succeed, for America to prosper and have a more beneficial relationship with the rest of the world. All lies.
The only reason I questioned any presidential policy was for self-aggrandizement. Or, maybe, something uglier. If not for self-aggrandizement then maybe for some unconscious racism towards the president. Likewise, when I believed that Rahm dissed progressives-that was only a delusion caused by latent anti-semitism.
I then began to see that the reason this country was destroyed financially and embroiled in costly & destructive foreign wars was because of my support of progressive issues-my support and the support of others of my "ilk."
The pernicious racism that still assails this country on back streets, the lamentable state of HCR, the financial collapse, endless global wars & the use of employment of torture & mercernaries to wage them, -these were all the fault of us "purity trolls" after all.
See, I misled myself. I thought a "purity troll" meant trying to achieve 100% of what a person thought an ideal society should be-but in reality-as shown in thread after thread-a "purity troll" is usually someone who wishes to take whatever compromise is currently at hand, that masks itself as policy, and move it 5 or 10 degrees closer to being something that makes a bigger difference to more people. Of course, that alone doesn't make a "purity troll." The key is to push for those 5 or 10 degrees at a time when others have accepted it is no longer politik to do so.
Oh, I've caught myself again. I've been using terms like "push" or "question." That's the subterfuge typical of us "purity trolls." The real word is "whining."
Us "purity trolls" are always "whining" because we haven't gotten our "ponies" yet. And then we lie to ourselves about it.
Oh, brothers & sisters, how well I know those lies.
How often have I told myself that I wanted to look backwards for investigations on possible war crimes-and even impeachment of the former president-in order to restore our honor and our image in the world?
Pure purity trolling.
Hoping for a public option somehow or a universal buy-in for medicare?
Pure purity trolling.
Fulfilling the elapsed promise to close Guatanamo?
Pure purity trolling.
Wishing the Obamas had gotten a terrier instead?
Pure purity trolling.
I was a "purity troll" all this time & I didn't even know it. Lucky for me, my soul was saved by one diary on the rec list recently. When I read it my predicament & condition immediately crystallized in my mind. The sublimeness and potency of its thesis irrevocably & correctly cast me in the role of purity troll-I clearly saw my own damnation & dissipation.
I stand on my soapbox and yell to the masses that President Barack Obama is winning and I will follow him wherever he takes me because I trust him and I will never again waiver in my belief in our President.
The fact that I couldn't promise to follow unquestionably or even promise to never waiver in my belief in our leader illustrated to me what a "purity troll" I was. I had still thought I was a supporter of the president. I had even thought I wished for his wife to be president one day. All lies.
There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are "purity troll" lies.
Brothers & sisters, pray for me.