How do you *really* feel?

When writing something in a public forum, sometimes it's important to remember that strangers are reading it, and that they don't know you, and they might not necessarily understand all the nuances behind what you're saying.

Yesterday Jazz over at Running Scared commented on a piece in yet another blog, Dean's World. Dean seemed to be saying that disagreeing with the current administration in a vocal and obnoxious manner was unpatriotic. Really, it seemed like he was saying that to me, too. Parts of it were really cheesing me off. Especially when he said the thing about people resenting the "piddling cost" of the Iraqi war. Hoo, that made me see red!

And yet the piddling cost and the incredible work of our people is now routinely viewed as a disaster.

OK, incredible work! Great patriotism! I really do admire people who will fight and die because they think that it makes America a better and safer place to live! But PIDDLING COST?! Too far!

Damn, digressing again. OK, back to where I was. There's a long list of comments and dialogue on Jazz's site about how he's misinterpreted what Dean has said, that he's not advocating the idea that dissenters should be silenced, and that he didn't mean "that everyone who won't toe a specific ideological line is to be considered unpatriotic" (quoting Dean from the comments, there), but rather that Jazz has not understood his point.

On his own site, in the comments, Dean states the following:

Where do you get off suggesting that because I've said this, I want any of them forcibly silenced? Or that I want any of their "heads on a platter? They're just vile, disgusting people who make me a little ashamed. But then, I'm also proud to live in a country that gives such evil assholes the right to spout their evil. It just means that people like me have to work extra hard to counter their hate-speech with more speech.

I'm bothered by the use of the phrase "spout their evil". To me, evil's too strong a word to use about every day behavior. Killing children in front of their parents for fun is evil. Dumping toxic waste in public drinking water is evil. Basically, causing others irreparable pain to further your own interests and enjoyment, that's evil. Prominently spouting your opinion in a public forum? Obnoxious, maybe, but not evil. But, it wasn't until I read those words that I realized that I was, in my mind, damning Dean the same way that he seemed to be damning me (unknowingly, of course, he doesn't know me from Adam) in his column. I suddenly saw that we all think that we're right.

Now I understand that Dean doesn't want all the liberals forcibly converted or arrested for their "unpatriotic behavior", and that's a relief. But buddy, I'm telling you, as a stranger, it really read that way.