I'm spoiled. Not in any financial sense, lord knows, but because I lead a relatively sheltered life in Buffalo, a purplish section of a solidly blue state. I work for a progressive health services agency, and my co-workers are overwhelmingly Democrat and Liberal. Oh sure, I have Republican co-workers too, but they're the Republicans you can engage in conversation without feeling the need to boil your clothing as soon as you get home. I learn a lot from them.
Still, once in a while the real world forces its way into my little private HappyLand. Back in the early 1990s, Operation Rescue came to town and transformed Buffalo - overnight - into the main battlefield in the abortion war. It was a scary time. Tens of thousands of people from both side of the issue traveled to Buffalo, itching for a fight. Though tensions were high, violence never broke out.
As high profile rallies and demonstrations attended by 10,000 people gradually gave way to a few dozen stragglers at clinic defense every Saturday morning, these "others" lost their power over me. These weren't people to fear. They were pathetic, misguided, simple. Some were clearly developmentally disabled or mentally ill. They just thought they were doing the right thing.
We all got spoiled.
Ever since the initial shock of September 11, 2001 wore off, I'm seeing changes that I don't much like. The faces I see on television or on the internet aren't simply trying to do the right thing. They're hateful faces, the faces of people who would hurt me - in a second - if they thought they could get away with it.
The problem with hatred is that it seems to shut down the rest of the brain. Critical thinking, logic, curiosity, it all goes out the window and all that's left is a burning hatred.
This week I had a message board exchange with a woman who told me, flat out: You Liberals are the only ones making a big deal out of gay marriage. Conservatives don't want to make it an issue. I replied, as civilly as possible, citing examples of Conservatives who did indeed want to make gay marriage an issue. Her reply? You're just another Bush-hater.
Now, this goes beyond simple disagreement. This isn't two people looking at an issue from two different perspectives debating their positions. This isn't even someone who watches Fox News and gets a distorted perspective. This is someone who can take in the same information as you and me and still come up with something completely off the scale of reality.
So how do we talk to someone like this? How do we engage in a conversation with somoene who thinks everything is going just great in Iraq or that Tom Delay is the victim of a Liberal witch hunt?
I don't know. And part of me doesn't want to know. I mean, logic won't work, or it already would have. But I do think we need to find some way of communicating, because regardless of who or why or how they hate, they do, and that's not going to get better any time soon.