Flame Wars are exhausting...

I've been involved in a huge flamefest over on Slog for the last 24 hours. Christopher Frizzelle posted a piece about the 18 year old Wisconsin boy who blackmailed 7 of his male classmates into having sex with him. Christopher pointed out that all the hyperbole may not fit the crime, (the post is titled, "What He Did Was Wrong, Yes-But...") and he was immediately bombarded with a slew of crazy hatred basically insinuating that Frizzelle was supporting a pedophile and insensitive to those poor children/victims, blah, blah, blah. I had to defend Christopher against that dumbass, judgemental, holier than thou shit, and I got the mud slung at me...(in a nutshell, Frizzelle and I being stupid faggots of course wouldn't know any better since if we aren't actually pedophiles, by being gay we're the next best/worst thing). At first it was fun having a good old fashioned discussion/shouting match about something you feel impassioned about, ie, the stupidity of people in general but of course you're never going to change anybody's narrow, rigid little mind so in the long run you just exhaust yourself and end up wasting most of your day. I suppose, as an obligation of one's civic duty, it's good to take part in public discourse, even if it seldom, if ever, changes anyone's mind. But, my blood is still boiling and I'm bad about not having the final word so I'm going to have to force myself to quit responding and continuing to feed the flames of that thread. Plus, I'm going out for a pleasant meal tonite with a good friend and I need to release the anger so I can enjoy my margaritas...

(NOTE on a Redaction from this entry: Frizzelle was irritated that I implied I was quoting from what he wrote me, so I've removed it and apologized to him for publicly stating that he had personally replied to a commment I had made on Slog.) But I am keeping quotes from the reply I sent him:

Obviously, Sex Hysteria and Phobias, New Age/Post Modern Puritanism, the hypocrisy of Old Media and American Society's infatuation with the Blame Game, ("Hey, I'm a fuck up because I was abused/have attention deficit/I'm gay/I'm a woman/I'm a minority/I'm a white man of priviledge/my parents spoiled or ignored me/it's because of the Liberal Media, or the Jews, or the Conservatives or the Liberals or the Coloreds or the Fags or the Arabs") are some of my favorite topics...

and this:

and regarding your (Christopher's)critics on that thread:

(1)just remember that all people are kind of stupid, in a variety of degrees, about one thing or another and the majority of people are very stupid about a great many things.

(2)and that very, very few "heterosexualists" and a surprisingly large number of same-sexualists don't really understand the politics of sexuality, hetero, homo or otherwise because sexuality scares the crap out of most people, their own as well as others. Also, very, very few people are able to be honest about their own sexual instincts and desires.

(3)Refer again to #1

and the final thing I've posted on the thread:

Finally, All I'm gonna say is that I think that all of you who are having a fucking conniption because Christopher, myself and other people expressed our opinion that this kid may or may not be getting railroaded because of idiotic perceptions of sexuality need to step back and remind yourselves that you're guilty of assuming that this kid is guilty of the crimes of which he has been charged before any trial or any release of information about the particular circumstances of what happened, as well as assuming you know the state of mind of the victims, (and like I said before, since this case involves minors, we may never know the particulars).You weren't there, we don't have any facts or information and I don't care if you or your sister or your grandpa were the victim of any kind of sexual attack or offense; the tragic experience you or a loved one had doesn't make you an expert on the experiences of ALL victims of sex crimes. People need to stop being so idiotically judgemental and realize that NOTHING in the world should be looked at in black/white or either/or terms.