Whoa, that sure went to hell. Never mind.

If this makes me sound like a bit of a Jeremiah, I’m sorry. Although a more appropriate metaphor would probably be Cassandra.

I’m glad you’ve got your life sorted out so you can comfortably watch all this from the bleachers. I’ve got two kids that should be having a better future than Greece has. Me, I’m 58 and starting to look for blue-collar work because I can’t count on getting contracts in my own specialty any more. I don’t have the time to wait for the writing to pay off, and I don’t know how many more years my disabled wife can support us both.

But unlike Cassandra, I guess I can put a sock in it.

I reserve the right to respond, though.

If you were busy here every day, repeatedly, promoting your business, or your sports team, or your church, or your favorite boy band, no one would feel any obligation to reason and debate with you, at least not after the first few times. After all, nothing is off limits here. We’ve been even known to tolerate Atlantis, reincarnation, UFOs and the chupacabra. But we don’t dwell on those subjects all the time.

Someone elses’s anomalism and personal obsessions get pretty tiresome when faced every day, day after day. If you insist on dragging yours here, there’s not much we can do to stop you, but if any one of us refuse to engage you the way you insist upon being engaged, there’s not much you can do to stop us, either.

This is a public forum. People are free to respond, or ignore you, or even leave. There is also room for the Bronx cheer, the raspberry, and the fart in the balcony. But there is also a reciprocal responsibility for the speaker, as well as the audience. You have expressed smug pride at those you have driven off. They “couldn’t take the heat”, remember? You “wiped the floor with them.”

But a better alternative, perhaps a more instructive one for the offender, is for others to express openly how they feel about how you abuse this free and public resource for your personal gain. Yes, personal gain. You wouldn’t think of advertising your business here, or preaching your religion; why should continuously promoting your political philosophy be any different? This is a community, a forum. Not an advertising medium. Unlike Mr Reagan, you did not pay to be here.

If you, or anyone else here, doesn’t agree with my position, they’re free to tell me so. And I have enough respect for this community that if I feel there is general disagreement (it need not be unanimous, or even a majority) with what I’m saying, I will leave. I have too much self-respect to stay somewhere I’m not wanted and if my behavior is objectionable to honest observers, then I will withdraw. I have too much pride to adopt the role of troll.

You see, I recognize that perhaps things I feel very strongly about can cloud my judgment, cause me to behave inappropriately, maybe even be a prick. I may have to rely instead on the guidance of those I respect. Imagine that.