F U

There was a disturbing little thing on this Facebook. A major player on the field seems to have political opinions of a sort divergent from my own. Why would I care. He seems pleased to share them. Again, it's party talk -- just the sort of thing that stakes out his territory. Not so much dog piss as the assertion of personality. It is our right. I don't know the conventions of FB, but I view it with restraint. There was however a strange attack on FOX News that just seemed foolish to me. You know, boogieman. It seemed gratuitous and incivil. I did what I rarely do, and "wrote on my wall." Lord. Discursive and indirect. Hinting at how we might conduct ourselves, publicly.

I got back something like, F-you. Well, no, it was exactly that. "F-you."

I don't have a problem following the rules. I don't like them, but see the need. In my few comments there, I maintain a vaguely stilted tone, ironic, alienated, overly-formal but colloquial. It just seems like a place to be superficial. Am I wrong? I don't understand these things. It's not my place. This is my place, where I pull the veil back, a little. It must be that this fellow feels the same way about FB -- where he can vent superficially on politics with the expectation that everyone upon whose page he appears will agree, or remain silent. That's probably what irritated me. I don't mind bias. I prefer that it be supported by evidence. And I encourage that it be challenged.

I acted out a little puppet show, and the fellow modified his tone. We can't ever be sure what the original intent was. But sometimes we just need a gentle reminder, and we're jolted without necessarily being made ashamed. It's a dangerous thing to confront a man's dignity.

We'd say Americans are so stupid, loving Obama, or hating him, or Bush. But it's not Americans, it's people. And it's not Obama or Bush, it's philosophies and tactics. Be generous with the poor? Certainly. But the redistribution of wealth by the coercive force of government is not generosity. Care for those who are ill? Certainly. But "healthcare" is not caring for the ill. "Healthcare" is a huge bureaucracy, a drug and surgery factory that has very little to do with health, and very much to do with disease. See? Philosophies and tactics. They're not stupid for disagreeing with me. They're wrong. Or maybe I am. In either case, we merit civility until we demonstrate otherwise. This isn't hard stuff to understand.

But I expect too much. That's why I generally keep quite. My humor is not likely to translate, and I don't want to impose. Here, I indulge myself. It is my place. You come here, albeit less and less, by choice. My ball, my rules. But I'm fair.

Halloween tomorrow. When the masks come off.


J