Bidding you a fond farewell.
I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed someone taunting animals at the zoo, but it is one of the more sickening forms of behavior imaginable. A kind of sadism despicable in its cruelty. Which means, of course, that my feelings of guilt run deep and won’t be easily assuaged. I beg your forgiveness.
Having some spare time of late, I came to DailyKos to taunt the animals prowling their cages there. My first essay, “Boycott the Malls,” was just for fun, and the responses were rapid and rabid and if not coherent, at least they were obscene. I found it interesting that the denizens at this particular zoo are no more capable of rational thought and civilized discourse than the apes and monkeys generally most damaged by zoo taunters.
If I had left it there, it would have been fine. Simply a learning experience. But no, I had to post “OMG! I’m a Liberal.” That was a provocation. I admit it. I wanted to see the animals go nuts, and boy, was I rewarded. My work was described as a pile of steaming shit (high marks for eloquence there). I was cursed and insulted, and threatened. It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. Most of all I felt bad about pulling all the DailyKossacks away from their drum circles. (By the way, now that your Occupation occupation has ended, how has the transition back to the real world been? At least it must have been nice to return to the basement room your mom had the chance to clean while you were off at the Jamboree).
When I posted “Tolerance is Easy,” I actually thought it might stimulate some discussion. I thought it might actually inspire some of you lurkers to think. I was wrong. I was called a racist, which seems to be the slur of the day for people on the left. Still, I was perplexed by the vitriol, the foaming mouths, the rhetorical spittle spraying from your frenzied lips. Why so angry? Why so inarticulately defensive?
Then I remembered back in the day when I was on the left myself, how even when successfully arguing my case, always at my back I could hear a tiny voice saying “What if I’m wrong? What if my reasoning is flawed? What if the foundation of my philosophy is errant?” Of course, I knew that to be the case, but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to be one of the good ones, a carer, a decent human being, and a smart one as well. In order to be all that I needed to be a liberal. Eventually the mental contortions necessary to argue my case became overwhelming.
I see most DailyKossacks are still in the whispered-doubt stage. You don’t want to admit that your world view is fatally flawed, which is why you hang out on a segregated playground, and only share your balls with like minded, equally infantile faux thinkers. When someone comes along spouting a different line, that line resonates in a part of your otherwise quiescent brain, and it frightens you. Which is why you lash out so crudely. I realize you can’t help it, any more than the apes in their cages at the zoo.
It was wrong for me to taunt you like this. But don’t worry, I won’t do it any more. Go ahead and relax. Eat a banana or something.