There are moments when I feel like there ought to be a camera filming my life and that occasionally I ought to turn around and address it, like Ferris did, but with more sarcasm like Deadpool.
Fifteen of us are seated at a table and someone starts bitching about the left and talking about how the right is so much more noble.
I know where this is going and I decide I don’t feel like keeping my mouth shut.
Six or seven different people are shocked by what I say because it is unbelievable to them that I could be so rude.
“How can you ask me to prove what is obvious? The new tax bill is going to be great and you hate it because you want Trump to fail.”
“No, I want him to succeed in spite of him being the biggest weasel to occupy the office. I want him to make life better for all of us but I don’t see him doing that. Why don’t you explain to me how the new tax bill works and explain how the people it screws shouldn’t be upset because their life will be so much better.”
Some around now is when I would address the camera(s) that don’t exist with a smart ass remark that makes the people I am with look like rubes while I look sharp.
Angry Monkey
There are people shrieking at me and asking me to explain myself. I speak in a normal tone of voice and two of them complain that they can’t hear me.
It forces them to come closer.
“Do I sound like an angry monkey? Do you hear me shouting in fear and rattling the bars of a cage?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means everyone who is yelling is doing so because they fear discovering that the emperor is naked and that I am right. I don’t have to yell, fact supports my side”
This sets a few people off and they insist they won’t discuss any more with me because I am unreasonable.
Something about it reminds me of a conversation with my mother many years ago.
She had given away or thrown out some of my shirts or rather had tried to.
“What are you doing with those? They are worn out shmatas.”
I don’t know exactly what I said, just something about her needing to remember that we might have differing ideas on what was important and that didn’t mean she could choose for me.
Sometimes the lost shmata is nothing but an old rag and sometimes it means much more to you.
Wild Accusations
Several people are fuming and more than one has accused me of intentionally inflaming them.
I shake my head and tell them if it makes them feel better to think so they are entitled to do so.
In the midst of it all someone asks me if I had to say I want to make Texas blue.
I smile and tell them I want people to deal with fact, not fiction and to demand better from the orange man in office.
“I think you know you made a couple of them feel stupid and that you did so intentionally.”
I shake my head and smile, “I wasn’t trying to make them feel stupid but I am not willing to not poke holes in some of the crap balloons they floated. If it makes them feel stupid, that is because they know better.
We go back and forth some more and I point out some of the wild accusations that have been made and am pleasantly surprised by his agreeing with me.
That leads to a longer conversation and we find several areas of agreement and though many of our positions are different it is clear we can find a reasonable compromise.
****
Recent interactions on social media have been less enjoyable and provided less hope of finding common ground and compromise.
The white supremacists on Twitter aren’t among those I hope to find common ground with.
That sort of engagement is to provide a reminder that the past is going to remain in the past and any attempt to bring it back will be met with logical consequences.
But the interaction with supporters of the prez give me less hope and it is my fervent desire there is more room to find compromise than I see/hear.
You can fix ignorance but you can’t fix stupid.
