I was tipped off to the fact that The Freepers were "responding" to my "Open Letter" post.

This one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Despite my better judgment, I went and looked at their responses, hoping that at least one person over there might be civil, or open to dialog. They were rather, er, well, nasty, and actually attacked me left and right. Which I feel pretty neutral about. I've seen worse in my lifetime. Oh, well.

Some things I witnessed on my lovely jaunt to FR:

1.) First off, the majority of them assumed I was a man. (?)

2.) They were PISSED OFF and very offended by the post, and said I was lying about the whole thing.

3.) They actually accused me of "making the whole thing up" and backed up that argument by saying that I did not give the name, rank, and location of the soldier I spoke about, so it must all be a lie. (I guess it didn't occur to that individual that the point of my post was NOT to reveal personal information about another individual, but to drive home the fact that people don't HAVE to hate.) Why the hell would I post the soldier's information on-line?

4.) They took my statement that Democrats care about human life (which is why we want the war to end) and ran with it, saying "Why do you support abortion on demand (is that like "movies on demand?"), and baby-killing, then?" Interestingly, my view on abortion was NEVER discussed in this post - they just made that assumption about me, and accused me of that! Which is weird. Nowhere in that post was anything about abortion ever mentioned.

5.) They managed to extract from my post that I must have never had a civil conversation with a conservative before. (The point was that I do it all the time.)

6.) Another argument that they used to support the claim that I lied about the event was that they apparently think "nobody can remember a conversation that well." I guess I'm too stupid to remember a conversation, but smart enough to completely invent one at the "whim of a hat" and use perfect inflection and quotation while fabricating it. Not to mention, if I was out to stick it to conservatives and poke fun at them, why would I INVENT a conversation about a pleasant, agreeable conservative? Why not invent a phony conservative who was an asshole? That would work better, yes? Yeah, I want to make conservatives look bad, so I spent an hour writing a work of fiction about an enjoyable conversation with a kind, friendly conservative whom I liked. (?!?!?!?!) Ok, yeah, that'll work.

7.) Best of all: they claimed my story was "boring" and I had nothing better to do because I must live in my parent's basement." Ok, I DID gloat a little as I read that, then gazed out the window of my beautiful house in the northern California hills, over a sprawling range of greenery, and thought "Damn, I have a nice home, and a nice view, and my parents live hours away. This is ALL MINE." And yes, I WORK for it. Like a MOFO.

Wow. Just when you think you've seen it all. They were angry and offended by a civil unity post. Well, I tried. Sad. I never said a single offensive thing about conservatives in that post. I'm blown away that they were able to glean that from what I said. I wonder what their response would have been if I encouraged hatefulness and incivility to conservatives instead?

Funny thing is, I know many very hard right conservatives, and until recently, I lived in a REALLY red area. All the Republicans/Conservatives I knew were well aware of my politics, and loved me. Why? Because I'm likable, that's why. I almost considered being a tiny bit wounded by all the rather odd vitriol my post generated over there (who'da thunk it?) but then I remembered that if those people met me, and knew my sense of humor and how cool I am, they'd like me, even if it killed them to admit it. Because I DO rock. And I'm not all that hard to look at.

It's easy to be abrasive and rude on-line, besides. In person, people aren't quite so bold.

At any rate - here's where they rip me to shreds for being honest and thoughtful.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blogge...

I'm actually flattered that there were 110+ posts of seething rage brought on by my kind words.