This morning my doctor friend, who I wrote about in my last diary (you know, the one who feels that the poor aren't suffering enough to justify his contributions to public-assistance programs), emailed me (and about 20 others) a link to this video:
To his credit, he normally doesn't do this; in fact I don't think he's ever included me on a mass e-mail containing GOP propaganda before. I don't really get any of these anymore. I had another friend who used to do this years ago, in the early 2000s; suffice to say that friendship did not end well, although it did end. A couple of other people have done it in recent years, and they either stopped when I asked them to or I blocked them. I think some have gone straight to the Spam folder.
Anyway, in response to this email, I sent my doctor friend a brief, simple, polite, unembellished request:
Please don't send me things like this. Thanks.
That's it, just that, nothing else. Follow me below the fold for his response.
I'm not going to copy-and-paste it here verbatim, but to paraphrase, his response was to this effect: "You know, you're the only person I've ever met who can't take a joke and has no sense of humor. Maybe that's why you're so unhappy. Making fun of oneself once in a while, through political cartoons or whatever, is a good thing. Never laughing will make you miserable. You need to lighten up."
Whoa. Where the hell did that come from? Given my current circumstances -- of which he is aware, but which I won't divulge here -- that second sentence was particularly vicious.
I responded thusly:
I have never said or done anything to you, ever, that would justify a diatribe like this.
That's it, just that, nothing else.
His response? I need to "chill," and "lower the rhetoric."
I'm not going to comment on the video which he thought was so high-frickin'-larious that he just had to share it with me so I'd have a good laugh too; I'll leave that to the comment thread. (If anyone can clue me in to what the joke is, please do, because I seem to have missed it.) All I'll say is, propaganda is propaganda. Propaganda is driven by hate, not humor. Hate is not funny; it is the enemy of reason, and it certainly doesn't become "humor" just because it validates your prejudices.
But this is the second time he's insulted me personally within the past month, because I don't and won't buy whatever bill of goods he's been sold by his favorite political party and its various enablers. I make a simple request, he responds by lashing out and accusing me of all sorts of character flaws, and I need to "lower the rhetoric"?
I think perhaps it might be time to follow the advice of some of the commenters on my previous diary, and re-examine my friendship with this person. It's unfortunate, because it would unravel an awful lot of threads that I don't want to unravel. His attitude toward those less fortunate than he -- at least, the imaginary strawmen who stand in for them in his mind -- is just as mean and self-congratulatory as you'd expect from a modern GOP fan, but it's something I've been able to tolerate because I know he would never treat real people so badly. Yet now it's becoming personal.
I haven't responded to the "chill" and "lower the rhetoric" remark yet, because I don't want to start an e-mail flame war with him right now that won't accomplish anything. This is something we should talk about face-to-face. E-mail, instant-messaging, texting, &c. are an extremely poor method of conversation; they are static words on a screen, too easily misread, and too much read-into. I'll deal with this when the time comes. Which isn't to say it won't bother me until then.