And then it all became political. And the shock — and honestly a shock that broke something in me, because you don’t expect that. You just don’t — was that people who knew me, people I’d considered friends, people I’d have trusted, people who weren’t political, believed the slander. I lost friends over it. But more importantly, I lost trust in humanity as a whole.
Because people I knew chose to believe that I’d had some kind of bizarre racist/sexist/homophobic aims, rather than that I simply disagreed with them about what makes good literature and what should be promoted and get attention.
Sure, I knew a lot of these people disagreed with me politically. But I knew that didn’t make them bad people. And I thought they understood — despite the demonization of generic libertarians/conservatives/whatever — that I was not any of those things. Oh, yeah, and not stupid, either.
But they didn’t.
Sadly these days, the color of your political party (red or blue) seems to count more than the content of your character.
It is infecting too much of our lives. All because so much is invested in controlling a way-too-powerful federal government.
It's funny. I don't have litmus tests on friendship with people who have different views than I do. But I'm supposedly the close-minded conservative. All too often, those who loudly claim to be "liberal (open)-minded" cannot actually be tolerant of different views. It is sad. Too bad for them. As I've often said, it is a crime against language that "liberal-minded" and "open-minded" are considered synonyms.
And I hope my words on this blog do more good than harm in trying to provide perspective and some semblance of sanity. I hope my record of sober and loyal (if sometimes contemptuous) opposition to Obama gives me credibility when I refuse to take the Orange Man Bad line as the method of analyzing whatever happens in the world or this country. I hope we get a grip.
I know Chappelle said the second amendment is the safety net of the first amendment fails. And the Army trained me in weapons use and basic tactics. So I can write. Or I can shoot in self defense. But I'd rather blog. Jaw-jaw is better than war-war especially when it comes to our fellow countrymen (and women). Better that social media is a cesspool of hate than our cities be torched cesspools of death.
Not that I really believe we are on the verge of a civil war. I do have memories of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Our political violence pales in comparison. I thank God that Twitter activists don't reflect our country. But I do have some worry that we'll make decisions on the effective assumption that those highly publicized fanatical loons do reflect our country.
So take my low ammo supply as a sign of confidence in our country and people in the real world to sort this out peacefully.
