Me vs. the Tea Party vs. Me again

I keep writing half a post and leaving it to languish in the realm of edit. Hard to figure quite what to write now while I see if I can/want to whip up anything resembling a readership.

Here's this though, because it's been bothering me. I just saw that a friend had joined a group on facebook called "I am American and I would rather live with Immigrants than Racist Assholes." Well, me too, obvs. But...this tone of discourse. It's gotta go.

I mean, listen, I get it. A friend from high school added me on facebook and turned out to be a teabagger and I was really hostile and made it clear I think his political party is a ship of fairly dangerous fools.

But here's the thing. Unless the next step in your plan involves violence, it doesn't make any sense to reduce your adversary to a monolith of wrongness and leave it at that. No matter how much you hate what they are saying, you have to consider it motivated irrationality and try to get your head around it a little.

I watch this happen everywhere, and I frequently participate. From the New Yorker* and its cringe-inducing condescension toward/baiting of Red State anything to meaningless internet wank like RaceFail to plenty of other ways and places people butt heads, I just don't think this is a good idea.

It feels good to call someone stupid if they have offended you. For a few months after Prop 8 in California, I had a few venomous sentences in my head that I day-dreamed about rattling off to the next pair of Mormon missionaries I saw in my neighborhood. It feels good because it's a tiny speck of revenge, and it feels good because it establishes your solidarity with the other folks on your side.

It just probably isn't worth it. My single new year's resolution for this year was "1) Be less of an asshole about religion." It's hard sometimes because I think religion is incredibly destructive. But I realized I was starting to sound like a crazy person. Well, or to sound like the people who provoke my (tiny, futile) rage.

I think we're not this bad. I think the fear we have is of unilateral disarmament. Stop attacking the tea party and maybe they'll win and we'll all have to celebrate Ayn Rand's birthday by laughing at a poor person. This is maybe our semi-conscious suspicion, our worst case scenario.

But the thing is, what we're doing now isn't working either.


*The New Yorker is basically my religion, but.