[Vision2020] Melynda, Keely, and Dick

[rvrcowboy]

My whole point being:  If Keely is so defensive and so quick to anger, she
must have a reason.  Could it be guilt?  Possibly... if not, then what?

Dick
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joan Opyr" <joanopyr at moscow.com>
To: "Vision2020 Moscow" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Melynda, Keely, and Dick


> Dear Visionaries,
>
> When it comes to defending her beliefs and defending herself, Keely
> Emerine Mix does not need my help.  She is brilliant.  She is eloquent.
>   She is a thoughtful, articulate, passionate woman, and she is
> thoroughly grounded in all of the issues on which she chooses to post.
> What she is not is this creature of guilty mystery that Dick Sherwin
> has conjured up from deep within his own terrified psyche.  When I read
> this sort of nonsense from Dick, below, I don't wonder what's wrong
> with Keely; I wonder what's wrong with Dick.
>
> He wrote:
>
> > If you are getting "pissed off", live with it.  You have an angry
> > streak
> > over something, you know, a chip on your shoulder like you are
> > expecting to
> > be attacked at any minute.  It has been my experience that sort of
> > anger is
> > usually brought on by some guilt in the person being angered.
> >
> > If you are letting me anger you, you are letting me control you.  That
> > is
> > your problem, not mine.  It is not my intent to anger anyone but I get
> > impatient with the childish name calling and snippy attitudes from
> > some of
> > the people here.  If you can't openly discuss any topic without getting
> > angry, then maybe you should figure out why.
>
> Once again, we find Herr Pot paging Monsieur Kettle.  Pick up the white
> courtesy phone, Dick.  Do you recognize that voice at the other end?
> By golly, it's you!
>
> What, honestly, do you think you have demonstrated by way of
> constructive, adult, intelligent dialog since the unhappy hour when you
> joined this list?  Snippy attitudes?  Childish name-calling?  Bad
> temper?  Accusations of mental illness and of deep, dark, terrible
> secrets?  Wayne is correct; when challenged on any topic having to do
> with religion or homosexuality, you seem to suffer from a kind of
> situational Tourette's -- you slaver and you froth; you shout and you
> shriek.  You are, in short, irrational.  For me, watching this
> spectacle has been more painful than aggravating.  I am sorry that you
> cannot debate calmly and sensibly; I am sorry that when your views are
> challenged, you fall to bits.  Why is this?  Is your faith so fragile
> that it cannot withstand any questioning?  Is your God so weak, so
> petty and insubstantial, that He might blow away on cloud of spittle if
> a few stubborn liberals fail to fall into line with your thinking?
> Whatever happened to a mighty fortress?
>
> Keely is angry with you, Dick, because you keep accusing her of things
> she has not done.  She has not had an abortion.  She wasn't obliged to
> tell you this, but she did.  You goaded her into it, and that's not a
> thing to be proud of.  Keely doesn't goad easily.  She's a devout
> Christian, and when you try her patience, you try the patience of a
> woman who genuinely tries and tries hard to walk in the path of your
> savior.  Shame on you.  Unlike Keely, I am easily goaded.  I have a
> terrible temper.  I would have told you to kiss my shiny pink ass; that
> whether or not I had had an abortion was none of your damned business.
> But she didn't.  She responded openly and honestly, and how did you, in
> turn, respond?  You accused her of lying.  What do you want from Keely,
> Dick -- a doctor's note?  I think what you need is a doctor's visit -- 
> a nice long doctor's visit that involves you lying on a couch and
> telling the nice bearded man with the Viennese accent exactly why you
> smoke such big cigars.
>
> That's all I have to say to you, Dick.  I don't wish you ill; I wish
> you peace.  Literally.  For heaven's sake, find some peace.  Get some.
> Embrace it.  I tried putting you on my Bozo filter, but I was afraid
> I'd miss the Grand Mal.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> So that's Dick in a can, but as long as I'm here, I'd like to address a
> related topic.  What is it that compels some of us to feel that we have
> the right to define a particular set of religious beliefs for others?
> What gives a fellow like Doug Farris or Mike Lawyer the right (or the
> hubris) to define Christianity for all the world and its wife?  When
> exactly did they meet God?  (And don't tell me between the pages of the
> Bible.  Experience suggests that God's too big to fit.)  When was it
> that Jesus Christ handed them the keys to the kingdom of heaven?  Did
> he really give them instructions to step through the gate and lock it
> behind them or are they just making that bit up?  It's not that I care
> what they believe, but the fact of the matter is that I have more
> confidence in the aphorism I found in my last fortune cookie than I
> have in their collective ability to read and interpret a collection of
> ancient Hebrew texts.  They can't seem to read a post to this list
> accurately.  Why should anyone trust them with matters of life and
> after-death?
>
> Listen: I wouldn't presume to define Judaism for any Jew but me.  I
> wouldn't presume to define God or what constitutes legitimate and
> acceptable religious practice for expressing a belief in God.  Why?
> Because I'm not God.  I'm a human being and therefore weak and
> fallible.  I am not infinite.  I am not all-knowing.  Who the hell is
> Mike Lawyer to tell Michael Metzler (or anyone else) who is and who
> isn't a "real" Christian?
>
> Want to know what "One America, Under Doug, Indivisible, with Liberty
> for Doug and Injustice for All the Rest" would look like in practice?
> Then check out Michael Metzler's blog, Pooh's Think, at
> http://www.poohsthink.com.  Doug Wilson's right-hand man, Mike Lawyer,
> has a post up there that describes my mother-in-law, Rose, as a woman
> who "claims to be a conservative Christian," but she really can't even
> be a Christian because she allows her lesbian daughter and her lesbian
> daughter's same-sex "nonChristian" lover to live in her (Rose's) home.
>
> Where to begin?  I suppose I could point out that Rose has never
> claimed to be a conservative Christian.  She's a liberal Christian, and
> a garden variety Quaker, at that.  Second, although this is certainly
> Rose's home, it isn't her house.  Melynda and I bought the farm from
> Rose and Don last year.  Third, what could be more narrow, more blind,
> more stale and provincial than dividing the world into Christian and
> non-Christian?  Taste the rainbow, Mike Lawyer!  Get thee out to the
> Renaissance Faire!  Meet and greet.  Chow down at the Filipino food
> booth or at the beans and burritos for Costa Rica tent.  Open your eyes
> and look, man.  You've got to get bored with your own navel sometime -- 
> let that time be now.
>
> Finally -- and this is important, sir -- I don't think of myself as a
> non-Christian.  I think of myself as a Jew.  I am not an anti, I'm a
> pro.  I am not the un-you; I am the me.  Do you get the difference?  Do
> you understand?  Or am I going to have to trot out the unCola versus
> Sprite analogy?  I hope not.  That would be sad, very sad indeed.
>
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
> www.joanopyr.com
>
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