Fatale Abstraction

At play in the fields of the weird...

Goober lawyer came into my office last week looking for his lawyer friend who lives on property. A true Social Inept, I could tell he thought he was going to do the big-swinging-lawyer routine for the dumb office-wench since he doesn't get around civilian females much and rarer still gets the chance to flex his superior brain-power. He picked up a publication from my table and started yammering about the election next year. In a sneeringly smug and pedantic monotone he made statements to the effect of I'm-regurgitating-the-minced-baloney-talking-points-we-all-got-from-Als-FrankenGore-because-enlightened-people-be-democrats-of-course and I just sat there. *blink*blink* When he ran out of breath at the end of his one-note samba about the idiocy of electing Republicans, he finally paused to ask me what I thought. I said, well, I'm actually more Libertarian than anything and he shot back with "why would you vote for Giuliani?" and I said "I wouldn't(and here's where I was off-to-the-races), and frankly, I can't imagine why liberal democrats have been so unhappy with George W Bush when he's been more liberal than Clinton and he's grown the government like a drunken-- well, like a Kennedy, and he's WAY too liberal." I said more, but I'm boring myself here.
Then he decided to retreat to a safe corner by saying "And what was with calling Reagan the great communicator? I just don't get that at all." The funny thing is that with each new tack he took, I could tell he was using what he thought were the sure-fire popular-with-the-ladies talking points, and he looked shocked. With the patience one uses to explain to a 2-year-old that the potty is, indeed, a chair they get to shit in, I splained him that after the bumbling international embarrassment of the Carter presidency, Reagan's bright-eyed optimism was a breath of fresh air and that he never lost that sheen, that he --like most Americans-- believed the greatness of America was not merely a thing of the past, and if you simply hammer people with a negative message constantly, eventually you will lose your audience entirely and Reagan was the antidote to that fire-and-brimstone political crap. I pointed out also that a lot of Dems were so stirred by RR's sincerity that they actually crossed the aisle.

He asked what I thought of Bush as a person and I said he seems likeable to me, and that I thought it was ironic that Dems accuse him of being so devious and sinister that he plotted 9/11 and yet they turn around and call him names and say he's a puppet for Cheney and you can't have it both ways-- simultaneously the dumbest and most canny person on earth. He said "I just don't like Cheney - something about him - he's so, so, so cynical."
I said "that's funny. You strike me as an extremely cynical person yourself-- do you think it's okay for you to be cynical but Cheney, having been vilified because people simply don't like him has no cause to be cynical?" Dude started sorta sputtering and I was done. I let him dribble all over himself as I stared very hard at words on a page and he finally sorta shuffled out the door.

Next time I have to go through that crap, though, I'm going to make it interesting for myself. I'm going to don my best apocalyptic-white-trash persona and in what might fairly be called the rape of the Engrish language, I'm going to find the most ignernt way of agreeing with them as possible and going one step beyond. I'll suggest concentration camps for conservatives and that we inspect everyone's home to make sure no one has the old-style lightbulbs or polluted indoor air or lead paint. I want them to question what is so very wrong with liberal Democrats that my unschooled ass could be one. Because straight-up logic simply doesn't work, obviously, and no doubt he's completely convinced of my ignorance now.

I prefer harmonious interaction with people (even those with whom I disagree as well as the occasional monkey) and I intensely dislike conflict, but if someone will keep pushing and not reading these obvious signals, then they'd better come correct, because I'm bringing my A-game and I'm not in the custom of losing arguments, not even to platitude-spouting attorneys.

Sorry. Another one of my rambles. I forgive myself, and hope you will as well.
Anyhoo. Have a great day.