Bully For You...Now Shut Up!

Seriously, if I open my email just one more time and get a "funny" email regarding the democrats, liberals or any other position or opinion not favored by my conservative friends, as the god I don't believe in is witness I am going to shoot someone! Perhaps myself for having allowed friendships with these half-wits.

Look, I'm 40. You know that. I've been a liberal since the age of 10 (more on that later). I am not going to change your opinions nor you mine so can we get down to the business of mutual respect and drink buying?

Why is it that I NEVER feel the need to forward anything even remotely about my political beliefs, nor do my liberal friends, but the conservatives feel it is their god (I still don't believe in) given right to clog my inbox with their opinion? If you know me well enough to have my email address then you must know my political bent. Cease and desist will you? Because if not, I'm going to start getting the idea that in the back of your mind you think there is something intrinsically wrong with me for not agreeing with you. And I might start thinking that way about you in return.

Is it we liberals, the true silent majority, that are wrong? Should we take up bullhorns and stand in front of churches and start chanting "wake up"? Should we start printing bumper stickers that say WWDD (What Would Darwin Do)?

I've been a liberal almost my whole life. Almost, because for the first 10 years I was on the fence. See, I have never had a hard time telling anyone what to do or to do it exactly as I say and I am more than occasionally convinced that I know what's best for the whole world; hence, a natural born conservative.

Sometime around the age of 10 I had a revelation. Following the rules of the schoolyard (and most Parliaments), if I posit that I can force others to behave as I think proper, then it is only a matter of time before a bigger, badder school yard bully forces his or her opinion on me. And as every 4th grader knows, you're always just one transfer student away from not being the biggest or the baddest. I figured out at 10 (precious, wasn't I?) that if I can tell others what to do then I am setting myself up to be told what to do by someone who can shout louder or hit harder. This is not a good thing. But what was the alternative? Simply to live and let live. Yes the tough guys of the world would still exist but one need only survive to the next grade or graduation to escape them.

But adult life doesn't quite work that way does it? There are co-workers, neighbors, in-laws and countless others that are forced upon us by societal conventions. There are even those friendly acquaintances and poorly acquainted friends with whom one shares facets of one's life but never the whole picture. And when these people decide to shove their ideas down your in box there is no nun or hall monitor to save you. Because you have allowed them access to your life and they haven't the common sense or civility to just back off. They are so convinced of their own superiority that they just can't help but smash their opinions in your face. How is that any less disrespectful that a schoolyard wedgie? It's worse! Because if these people had any respect for you or any real conviction in their own beliefs they wouldn't be so desperate in their attempts.

Please, please, please, I beg of you. For the sake of whatever good feelings I may have (or had) for you and you for me let us just agree to disagree. I know Hillary has huge thighs, I know Bill is a sex fiend, I know you think the polar bears are committing suicide and that melting ice caps just mean the Great Slushy shortage is over. I get that you think Guantanamo is the latest Club Med and water boarding is spa treatment; I understand that my uterus is your backyard, and that gay marriages that have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever would mean the end of civilization as you know it. I get it already. I have friends who took too many acid tabs at Dead shows and they hallucinate too. I'll do for you what I do for them-hold your hand, let it pass and try not to make you feel embarrassed when you realize what an ass you've been.

Tell me, why is it that those have the least clue about anything have the thickest manifestos? Why is it that these people who believe they have a blueprint for a proper life are also the most miserable? Wouldn't it be easier to stop trying to control other peoples lives and redirect that energy on living your own?

Look, this isn't open for debate. Don't write me back with your skewed, off-kilter, "right makes right" arguments. So help me, I will round up every lefty, pinko, femi-nazi, militant dyke, flaming twink, egghead intellectual, tree hugger, baby killer and greenie I can find and bombard your mailbox with something you sorely lack-common sense.

Please, cease and desist and be confident in the knowledge that in years to come when you're sunning yourself on the Atlantic beaches of Ohio in SPF 40³ and scuba diving the balmy Bering Straight, when Hillary will be dead and still fat (unlike the Polar Bears who all died skinny) and the gays will have experienced the horrors of marital bliss and the third world occupies 9/10ths of the planet that you, in your infinite right-wing wisdom were right all along. Because nothing in your world will have changed.