To yell or not to yell..

At the ripe old age of 20, I remember bursting into tears trying to convince a group of likewise twenty-somethings why smoking should be allowed in public; it’s funny that while something as trivial as trying to establish the rights of smokers when I hadn’t so much as touched a cigarette my entire life so easily induced the water works, more real problems like being thrown out of the college dorm didn’t so much as dampen an eyelash.

My arguments --- and I have had plenty of them in 26 odd years--- almost always end in vehement shouting or frustrated tears; in either case, I would usually have had the last word (or shriek as the case may be). For as long as I can remember, I have had this compulsive need to convince people to not only see my point of view but also see it as the ‘only’ one. Pretty ironical for a person that does not believe in a little book of laws that claim to know right from wrong.

Something my old roomie and good pal, Vidy has often said to me comes to mind. Her contention is that I am not the “open minded” soul I claim to be. I might be unfazed by gay people making out in public or anarchists smoking in the non-smoking sections of restaurants, but I am certainly more than just a tad disdainful of those that don’t eat meat because of religious reasons, those that don’t know what NAFTA stands for, painstakingly carb-conscious people, fanatical environmentalists (painstakingly and fanatical being the operative words) and teetotalers. And while I would go all out to applaud the woman that holds her own in an argument, is fairly well-informed about world affairs and puts career before men, I could never for the life of me respect a girl that depends on a guy to earn her daily bread or fix her car. And the list of people I scorn, of course, is endless, leaving me insulated in my own little world of libertarian, agnostic, pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-marijuana, fast-car-loving, euthanasia-touting esotericism. Okay, that’s too much evidence for me to wink at; I am close-minded -- only on the opposite side of the spectrum. And the big difference would be that because I don’t advocate that the world be ruled according to my interests, I allow the far-right-extremist as full a life as I allow myself.

I have never been one to shy away from the fact that I can be a formidable human being ----so I admit that the tears and the shouting and the scorn are certainly a thing of character, but I also like to shift blame wherever possible --- and what I am increasingly coming to realize is that it is a “viewpoint” thing as well. In other words a set of human beings that share a certain viewpoint seem to have a very similar way of expressing it.

Yeah, if you’re thinking this is just another one of my million posts about me, me, me, you’re wrong (though you would have been right the rest of the million times minus one). I may look at the world through my little keyhole, but I try to look out at as much as possible through it :)

If you have made a careful observation (or sat in front of broadcast news 24/7 for a week), you would agree with my theory: the person that says a big corporate giant should be protected from needless taxes almost always screams it, while the one that says the poor man on the street should be fed almost always says it quietly. I don’t know if something as outrageous as protecting the rights of the rich, mean, immoral man in the penthouse suite of a skyscraper falls to decibels for conviction and feeding the bedraggled individual on the sidewalk is basic human instinct, but there’s got to be a deeper meaning.

Hawkeyejo, my floating friend in cyberspace gleaned this piece of information from the worldly wise web, which, among other things, notes, “libertoids (are) every bit as closed-minded, zealous, and ideologically blinkered as the religious conservatives whom so many of them dislike”

If you have ever watched a libertarian like Jonathan Hoening on a show like The Cost of Freedom and almost reached out to touch the intensity of his beliefs, you’ll agree with the above assessment. While I belong to that subset of libertoids that go about life airing their inconsequential opinions to anyone that would care to listen, I have noted with some surprise, bordering on awe, that my democratic, liberal friends are usually content to make their point and then grant a benevolent “sure” to my obviously opposing views (and believe me, I need much more than “sure”). Same reason why a left-winger like Alan Colmes sits and quietly takes the mentally deranged Sean Hannity’s cloistered opinions. Or that the democratic camp boasts of a solitary Dean or Moore while the Republican camp is filled with hannities, o’reillies, coulters and limbaughs.

The reason democrats are so incredibly passive as politicians (think Kerry), talk show hosts and human beings is that they are progressive and open to “all points of view” (which unfortunately include such diverse sounds as Ann Coulter’s whining and Bono’s musical lyrics). The republicans on the other hand are meant to be crass and insulated, which in celluloid terms, translates as hanging on to a viewpoint and repeatedly saying, “you are wrong”.

Breaking it down, the Republican’s world-view is a keyhole, the libertarian’s world-view is himself and the democrat’s world-view is the entire world (they are now looking to add Mercury, Venus, Mars and that behemoth, Jupiter). Thus the democrat’s dilemma is not a new phenomenon but the inherent crisis associated with the proverbial cat on the wall.

My two-pence: stick to the black or white and scream your heart out…..venture into the grays and prepare yourself for a lifetime of no yelling….