"You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell, you're all gonna be doing that."
I recognize that quote - it's from the controversial new episode of Walking Dead. 'Not sure how it applies to this thread but somehow it fits. There are various interpretations possible. Cryptic. Nothing definite. The dramatic performances in that episode were good. Riveting. Disturbing.
This thread also performed well. In only three days, there have been 144 posts with over 1,200 views (no doubt there will be many, many more long after I post this final post myself). Mission accomplished. Just as the anti-Trumpsters have been effectively manipulated by the 'Crats - thinking that they are acting of their own volition in having their votes neutralized, so I have manipulated all of you: Luis Gonzales, Easy Ace, Invar, Music Lady, Rat Patrol, Catherine of Aragon (who could have stopped in her post above with "I don't think" and been more correct) and so many others into posting here...not because I ever had any intention of or illusions of using reasoned argument to get any of you to change your positions, but because I wanted anyone interested to see exactly what mindless hatred looks like.
Not that you are bad people. I know that you aren't. But there is something unhealthy about all of you. None of you really care about beating Hill-O-Lies. This Trump hatred is not about politics, it's about your psyches. Finding moral superiority - and safety, but from...what?
None of you are really convinced that there is no realistic chance that Trump will be a significantly better president. None of you really believe beyond all reasonable doubt that Donald Trump is insane, or terribly dangerous (especially not more dangerous than Hill-O-Lies). But because you have said that you do believe all of those things and so many more - and you are so insecure in yourselves, you will never, ever admit any of that - most of all to yourselves. This is blatantly obvious to everyone observing this thread - except to yourselves. This hatred for Trump and those who support him is about psychological issues not political ones. So it is for many who curse and gnash their teeth so...energetically. Over a humorous poem.
Extroversion is the tendency to look outward for cause or blame for conflict, cause or blame. This is what is happening here. It's not healthy because it hurts the ones who hate most. But we can't seem to help ourselves because on one level it feels VERY safe to hate - safer than to care about others. To take refuge in mindless, meaningless unbridled pure hatred - us against them- as if we are separate. That feeling...it's what insanity probably feels like- that self assured conviction that "I owe nothing to the universe". Not the bogus variety, not the Bush League variety - the real thing - dangerous insanity. The sort that makes us feel great about doing things we know or suspect to be morally wrong because deep down there is an overwhelming urge - like taking a crap.
We FEEL that we MUST do these things. Say these things. Defend these things...or something terrible,
intolerable will happen. And that terrible intolerable thing is this: We will experience loss-of-face...loss of esteem...be...unlovable. So the circle continues to avoid feelings of humiliation until one day...something changes...not because someone outside causes it (never)...but because something
inside clicks. Something inside BURNS OUT. All of the complex, interrelated illusions cannot be sustained. The defenses collapse and reality floods in. Some day.
"You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell, you're all gonna be doing that."
But we are not killed. We think we will when the defenses collapse. Hell, we KNOW we will. But miraculously, we survive. Then living can begin again...because the hate has lost. Freedom from hate is the freedom of Salvation. it FEELS like Salvation.
I don't hate a single one of you. If I saw you on the street, I would most likely believe you to be great people and I'd want to know you. I wouldn't give a damn about your politics.
Opinions are not things. Opinions are not physical things. Opinions are what we hope to be and what we fear that we are...they are like Raptor eggs. We defend them as if they are the most precious things in the world. But opinions should be like turds - flushed away when we don't need them any more. May God cleanse all of us of our opinions.
This post is for me...mostly. Not for the observers who are following the debate and most definitely not for those who believe that I am evil, or stupid or wicked or a plant from the Democrats or whatever nonsense has been stated about me that is more humorous than disturbing. This is the last post from me on this thread.
It was fun (especially for you I have named above and your fellow mindless mob members). I forgive you for your attempts (vain as they were) to strike out at me and cause me hurt or harm. I understand why you did it - all of it.
But I wonder...
Do you!?!
Now, let the derisive posts issue forth! Let the denigrating expostulations, the scathing rebukes, the insightful droll recriminations! The oh-so sharp and piercing indictments of character. The witticisms. The aphorisms. The tomfoolery. The leveling of invective. All of it. Let it all loose. Like a huge bowel movement.
The only difference is...after indulging in that sort of orgy of sneering unbridled hatred for hatred's sake, does it really feel better for very long? Or does the emptiness seep back in...slowly but surely...over the minutes and hours and days...until there is only...silence again. Mob dispersed. Enemy vanquished (I will be vanquished because I will not defend myself against such lunacy, no more than a psychiatrist in a mental ward defends against accusations of mind-control through radio waves).
I shall be defeated. I am defeated. REJOICE!! The enemy is gone.
Now what?
(firing of the starting pistol) Selah! Thanks again to everyone for their participation.