In response to my last post, I received a few comments that I wanted to address here. The first comes from Dave:

Great post. But I think in the end I have to disagree with your main premise. Reacting violently to someone elses practice of free speech should never be tolerated. And I know you agree that any crime committed by those angered should be punished, but you also seem to imply that, for instance, the flag burners kinda knew they had it coming. It’s akin to the rape victim who is blamed for the crime committed against her.Freedom of speech should be honored and respected.

Freedom of speech should, indeed, be honored and respected. I’ve never argued otherwise. I do agree, without any hesitation, that any crime committed by those angered by someone else’s right to express themselves should be punished. But if anyone read my post, somehow missed each of the times that I said that the targets of such crimes would not deserve to be targeted, and finished that post seriously believing that I was trying to say that those who make the initial action did deserve what they get, those folks would, in my opinion, belong to the group I mentioned who do not know me as well as they think they do.

Looking at the example Dave cited, I do not think that the flag burners would have deserved to have been attacked. (I think I said that.) I do not think that their attackers would have the right to attack them. (I know I said that.) I do not assume that the flag burners would know that they “had it coming.” My point was, simply, that while they had the right to express themselves the way they did, an alternate method that might not have created such deep reactions beyond whatever point they were trying to make might avoid the hypothetical attack I suggested.

Regardless of the fact that comparing an apparent reprisal for vitriolic posts to a woman getting raped is comparing apples to asparagus, I would like to take it for granted that Dave doesn’t really think that I’d suggest that a rape victim deserved to be raped. But just in case, let me put it this way: there is nothing a woman can do that would make her deserving of being raped. I’ll repeat: there is nothing a woman can do — nothing at all — that would justify someone raping her.

(If anyone needs me to repeat that a third time, perhaps in larger, red, bold type, just let me know.)

At the same time, anyone who thinks that I meant otherwise also objects when law enforcement officers warn women to watch their drinks in bars so that no one can introduce a chemical that might make her more easily victimized. Keeping an eye on your drink so that a predator cannot slip a date-rape drug into it while you’re not looking is similar to being respectful of others when you write online: it will not guarantee that you won’t become a victim of someone else’s felonious acts, but it also will not give someone who might commit the act anyway a more convenient reason to target you.

There are still people who go to bed and rest quite well while leaving their front doors unlocked. Some people leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition. If someone walks into their home and robs them, or steals their car, it is unreasonable to suggest that the victim of the crime deserved it; it is not unreasonable to suggest, however, that they were the enabler for the criminal who committed the act to do so more easily. The criminal might still have broken into their home or stolen their car even if security alarms, motion-sensing light systems and armed guards were all present; but common sense dictates that we take some precautions to at least make it harder for criminals to have the advantage.

To that same degree, the effort to be respectful of others with whom you might disagree might help avoid angering a reader — or a friend of a reader, or a friend of a friend, etc. — to the point that they might go even farther off the deep end than you went to begin with. It won’t guarantee that outcome, but it might help prevent it.

To my remark that on the internet, the rule of physics dictating that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction does not always apply, Shelly said:

“Psychology should not be confused with physics. People don’t obey physical ‘laws.’ Human reactions come as much out of their perceptions as the stimulus itself.”Of course, there is no one psychological theory, either, from behaviorists who look at the reaction and don’t consider the intent behind it to various other schools that try to probe deep into the psyche, such as Freudians.

“It’s the wide range of human behavior/reactions, that makes us so fascinating to study, because not everyone perceives or understands things the same way and likely never will.”

That Dave might suggest, even if he were joking, that what I was saying in that post was in any way akin to the ridiculous suggestion that a woman who is raped must deserve what happened to her serves as a quick proof to the validity of Shelly’s statement. If it was his perception that I intended to portray a rape victim as being “deserving” of what happened to her, then it is clear that what he read was far different from what I intended to convey. As he is the only person who has indicated that they think I meant to suggest such a thing, it’s possible that only he interpreted my post in this manner. Regardless, Shelly is quite right: Not everyone understands the same thing the same way.

You must decide for yourself whether speaking your mind in an intentionally-offensive way is worth the potential backlash that may arise. If you’re responsible, you make that determination before you say what you want to say, and if you decide that the potential price is too high, it might not be a bad idea to consider a different tack.

Karen, I think, summed up best my feelings on dealing with opposing views:

“What it comes down to for me is a very basic principle: people should treat each other with compassion and respoct. They may strongly disagree with each other’s politics, sexual orientation, religion, fashion sense, and or what-have-you, and protest, argue against or mock the other person’s position. But the PERSON should always be respected, even if the position is not.”And once we get that far, we should probably also take the next step, and consider whether the other side of the issue has some validity after all. Maybe it doesn’t, and we don’t necessarily need to rehash the question every time. But we shouldn’t just assume the other guy is always wrong.”

It is my goal, when I bring up a topic here, to respect people, even if I attack their viewpoints or their arguments. An easy example that comes to mind is Cindy Sheehan. I have stated repeatedly that Sheehan has every right to speak out against the war. I do respect her for having the courage to make her feelings known. At the same time, I have attacked her argument that she wanted to meet with the president, a man who she considers to be a liar, to get the truth about why we’re in Iraq, because logically, that argument doesn’t hold water: if you don’t trust him, you don’t trust him, so why pretend that though you believe that he’s willing to lie to the world, he’d suddenly be honest with you on a one-on-one basis? But that’s just one quick example. I try my best to show respect to people, even if I question their motivation or the logic of the position they have taken.

We are a country divided. The most striking poll statistic released in the past week wasn’t that Bush’s approval rating has dropped again to 36%, but that Congress’s approval rating is down to 22%! The poll revealed that 44% of Americans say they’re sick of Republicans and Democrats arguing and 36% say that they feel that Congress never gets anything accomplished.

It’s not surprising statistic if you look at the political “debate” that occurs: we can’t discuss any topic without it becoming a personal attack. If you don’t believe that, visit any blog devoted to one side of the political spectrum or the other: both sides are equally guilty. We seem incapable of discussing an issue these days without filling our discussion with hate-speak or attacks on our opponents. And when we do that, the issue itself gets lost in the one-upping.

How many people were infuriated when Bush made it clear that his philosophy was that you’re either with us or against us? And how many of them treat their opponents the same way when they’re arguing? That’s why so little is getting done these days: we focus so much attention on the way we attack each other that it doesn’t much matter what the argument is about, so long as we’re entertained by the barbs. And yet I think most of us would agree that when someone calls us some bad name because of some position we take, our natural response isn’t to suddenly be open-minded about that person’s argument.

So, no, I don’t mean to suggest that anyone who is a victim of crime deserves to have had a crime committed against them. I do suggest that sometimes, we make ourselves an unnecessarily obvious target for people who are willing to go to any length to have their way.

And still I wonder why we’d want to do that.