Serious Entry...

I guess it is finally time for a serious entry. I am feeling rather gloomy tonight. I am not sure what it is that I am doing wrong, but I can't seem to do anything right lately. I guess I really need to go back to the start of the crisis, and perhaps I can get out what is going on in my head and figure my way out of it.
For probably the last year or so, I have been an avid reader of the conservative website Townhall.com. I finally had found a website that lined up with what I felt and believed about politics, life, and pretty much anything else. I got pretty into reading it every day, it became an almost ritualistic routine each morning when I arrived at work. I would sit down at the computer, start Outlook, then click on my favorites. First, Yahoo! comics, always in the following order: 9 Chickweed Lane, Ballard Street, Dilbert, FoxTrot, Get Fuzzy, Luann, Monty, Pearls Before Swine, Rose is Rose, Rubes, Strange Brew, and one more whose name escapes me at the moment. When I had missed a day or two for whatever reason, I would always go back and see what I had missed. It was like a nice little feast on those days. But when I had finally finished all of those, I would then click on the Urban Legends Reference Pages Whats New? listing to see if any new urban legends had been posted. When I was finished with that, I would go to Townhall. I would spend hours there, reading the various columns from conservative writers. Some of my favorites were Mike Adams, Ann Coulter, Oliver North, and more that I can't think of right now. Anyway, I knew that this was a bad idea, I really was not being paid to spend this much time reading political opinion, but I had as hard a time not doing it as I sometimes have with other internet content. However, I did not see any problem with it. But about a week or so ago, I ran smack dab into an existential crisis. Mike Adams was doing a column on his feelings about Mormonism. I was really a big-time Dr. Adams fan, I loved how he would always skewer the self-righteous and hysterical lefties in academia today. However, now his acid sarcasm was leveled at the very center of my life. He was very critical, unfeeling, and seemed to be very pompously convinced of his position. All of these things had been amusing when aimed at people whom I viewed as reprehensible, but now it was aimed at me. I now know how others felt whom he had attacked. I won't write here about how it has affected my testimony, or my feelings about my religion. If I can get those thoughts together a little more, I may post on them later. For now, let me say that I began paying more attention to the writings and rantings of the conservative media that I had been worshipping for so long. I found without much effort that they were at least as equally hypocritical, if not more so than the lefty liberals that they abhorred so greatly. I listened to a talk show host who ranted and raved about how some Marines were being treated after being accused of a heinous massacre. While I agree that they deserve a fair trial, and not to be convicted in the press (and the Congress) before they have a chance to mount a defense, I also believe that if guilty, they should be punished every bit as harshly as any other criminal. Including the terrorists interred at Guantanamo. Trust me, I have never shed a tear over their plight, but now I began to consider. Might they not be in the same shoes as these Marines? If innocent, they need a chance to defend themselves. If guilty, the death penalty is probably a little too lenient. But the conservatives were as rabid in their defense of these Marines as they were in their condemnation of the Gitmo prisoners.
Have I switched sides? Not remotely. I think I have just learned a very big lesson in thinking for myself. I have always had a tendency to swallow whole anything fed to me by someone that I look up to, and have been bitten by it in the past as well. I guess it is time to stop simply wasting my days soaking up hatred, even if it is spewed by those with whom I generally agree. Hate is hate is hate is hate. A rose by any other name would be as thorny. Whether it is Democrats hating Bush, or Republicans hating Hillary. Whether it is white hating black or black hating white. It is all hate, and all evil. I vow to become more sensitive to hatred in all of its disgusting colors, and to avoid it at all costs.

Tuesday June 13, 2006 - 10:17pm (EDT)

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