House of Eratosthenes

I have been repeatedly instructed that I am supposed to believe liberals, and the people we like to call “conservatives,” think in exactly the same way. Nobody who has counseled me to adopt his belief as my own, has demonstrated to my satisfaction that they would understand a difference between these two sides if said difference swam up and bit’em square in the ass, let alone satisfied me of the non-existence of said difference. These are the Dime People, those who insist, in an attempt to convince themselves, it seems, rather than those around them, that “there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.”

I don’t agree with them because I can’t agree with them. I know better. There is a “left” way of thinking and there is a “right” way of thinking. So when someone on the left indulges in some kind of shenanigans, I’m of the belief that the other shoe is not necessarily due to drop — it doesn’t necessarily follow we’ll see the same skullduggery come from the right. We could; but it isn’t a given. Especially when the subject turns to intimidation, coercion, and punishment for having the wrong ideas.

Well “odum,” who runs the Green Mountain Daily, apparently disagrees. He’s written an excellent essay on DailyKOS about “The Four Words we Bloggers are Afraid to Hear From the Boss” — those four words being…

“It’s about your blog.”

That single sentence hit like a ton of bricks…I knew that the only reason it could possibly have become an issue at my workplace was if someone had gone out of their way to make it one.

There are few times in my life I’ve felt more vulnerable than that moment.
:
But someone didn’t like what I said. Someone not from the right, but the left.

Someone not from the right, but from the left.

This does nothing to quash odum’s faith in, well, in things to which he chooses to remain faithful.

I’d say it’s not simply that we can be targeted for this sort of intimidation and blackmail, but that we will. With even a couple heads on their wall, the rightwingers (with the help of lefties who are either witless or of poor character) will smell blood and eventually become emboldened to go on a hunting spree. Let’s not kid ourselves otherwise.

Yeah, I’m not quite getting it. I thought this scary episode had to do with an attack “not from the right, but the left.” How come the blame goes to the right?

I’ll tell you why I think this is relevant. As a non-dime person, as I’ve said above, I believe there is a fundamental difference in the ways the right and the left think. People I know, who consider themselves to be on the “right,” generally want things to stand on their own merits. People I know who consider themselves to be on the “left,” do not. I say something on my own blog, and if the left doesn’t like it, I have to be shown how wrong I am. I want to put latex over oil-based stain on an exterior, or I want to wash my whites with colors in hot — to simply let me do this and discover the mistake on my own, somehow, is out of the question. And so the snarky snippets ensue. I’m told how stupid I am. Some essay then comes back my way, short, long, somewhere in-between — it purports to show me the error of my ways, and within the substance, does no such thing. Instead, a cornucopia of little talking points, all well-digested before, and some completely unrelated to the subject at hand, assaults my senses like a hailstorm.

And it strikes me that the essay is constructed not out of concern for what shall be included therein…but out of concern for what has not yet been. Like someone will be going through it with a checklist later. Did he mention the war for oil…did he mention 70% of Fox viewers think Saddam Hussein carried out the 9-11 attacks…did he mention Dick Cheney worked for Halliburton…did he mention Bush and the pretzel…did he mention Jeff Gannon…did he mention, did he mention, did he mention.

If conservatives don’t like what I wrote, either they can prove I’m wrong, or they can’t. If they can’t, the difference of opinion is chalked up to disparate life experiences, which may or may not be smoothed out with ancillary life experience lived by both sides subsequently. And we part friends.

If the conservative thinks my idea is genuinely stupid…the very pinnacle of retribution I can potentially get back from them, is eyeball rolling. It stops there. No fire has been lit up under the conservative’s butt to get in my face about anything. Conservatives, by and large, are much like any other creature of nature. They may seem scary to some, but to them the impulse to do something about me, starts with me posing a threat to them, their loved ones, and/or their property. Not one split-second before that.

That my wrong-headed opinion could be so in need of correction, that my boss has to be told about it, I’m sorry I just don’t see that on the “right.” I see lots of evidence of it on the “left.”

The left simply doesn’t act like a wild bear minding its own business — because to them, everything is everybody else’s business. This is the home of the union-thuggery culture, in which the opinion-at-large is the property of the public. We voted to strike last night, you got outvoted, here it is the next morning and you’re crossing the line. So you get a busted kneecap, and if you’re here on crutches tomorrow, you get another. The interests of the union, after all, outweigh the interests of any one person in it, and the union of a thousand is supposed to have the leverage of a thousand empty chairs, not just 501. All for the union. Your thoughts are your thoughts so long as the majority sanctions them, and the day it does not, your thoughts become non-existent. Any and all means necessary, must be carried out, to preserve the union and the interests thereof.

So no, odum, I don’t believe it’s a given that the “right-wingers” will get you in trouble with your boss, just because it’s a matter of fact that some left-wingers did that very thing. Do let me know if & when it ever happens though. In the meantime, I suggest for your own peace-of-mind you cast the blame where it belongs, since it’s clear this has been a very disturbing event for you. As it would be for anyone.

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All For The UnionSaturday, June 17th, 2006

All For The Union
Saturday, June 17th, 2006