Last Updated on August 26, 2020
A funny thing happened to a comment I left at another journal this morning. The comment, along with my ability to leave others there, seems to have disappeared.
The piece I responded to was, ironically enough, in almost complete agreement with the article I wrote about the Bush Administration attempting to gain potential voters from church records.
I responded to an article written by a fellow journaler.
If you compare the two articles, they’re almost identical in their basic arguments. Where I took exception — the only place, in fact — was in her final paragraph:
“Using the name of God or Jesus to further your own career is sacriligious to me. To be honest, I don’t think Bush even gives a crap about religion. I think he just uses it to win over the Southern Baptist voters because he knows they’ll believe anything. And I can say that cuz I wuz one.” (sic)
Whether Bush gives a “crap” about religion or not, and whether she was or wasn’t a Southern Baptist, I found it a little insulting that she would slam all Southern Baptists. As one, I left a response along the line of this:
“Southern Baptists will believe anything? Interesting point of view.
I’m one, and I don’t believe EVERYTHING I hear. I’d like to think I have more common sense than that.”
Within twenty minutes, my comment had disappeared and a new article had been added to her journal, in which she says the following:
“I really feel that all people should have a right to say what they think and believe — regardless of whether I like it or not.”
But wait: two paragraphs later, she adds:
“Negative comments put me in an ill mood and make me not want to write at all. So, if you stumble across this site and you find something you don’t like, feel free to comment. But make it a good one because it will be your last one if I feel that you are being hateful, argumentative, or mean-spirited.”
My comment was neither hateful nor mean-spirited in its intent. As for being argumentative, it was in the sense that I was presenting a point of view that differed from hers. It was my intention to make the review in a respectful manner: I thought I had. (It is entirely possible, you know, to argue a point respectfully. People do it here with me all the time, and I appreciate each one who does.)
At the same time, I can’t read her remark about inviting those who disagree with her view to comment as anything else but an invitation to argue (respectfully, of course) an alternative view. It makes no sense to invite someone to tell you that they disagree if you’re only going to delete their comment and block them. (For the record, when I tried to comment, I received a message indicating that I have, indeed, been blocked from leaving future comments in her journal.)
If she feels that she can slur all Southern Baptists for being gullible “cuz” she “wuz” one, she implies two things:
First, since she uses a past tense, it’s assumed that she must have had some spiritual awakening at some point that her religion was unfairly obscuring her point of view and thought processes. Any religion that doesn’t allow its believer the opportunity for free thought and interpretation must not be working for that individual. Clearly, she must have enough common sense to have made the judgment that the Southern Baptist religion doesn’t work for her. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s an admirable quality, I think, to seek answers that make the most sense to our own internal barometer. There are plenty of others, however, for whom that denomination does work. That doesn’t make them wrong, either.
Second, by insulting an entire denomination of people without bothering to consider the fact that one of the members agreed with her larger argument, she is employing the very same kind of hate she claims to be unable to tolerate from someone else.
She states in her last paragraph that she doesn’t leave comments in journals she disagrees with, choosing instead to “move on.” She shouldn’t mind, therefore, the fact that she, at this moment, is the only person who is blocked from leaving comments in mine. (Since she mistakenly bellieves we don’t agree on anything, anyway, I’m sure she wouldn’t ever try to comment here to begin with.)
For those of you who are willing to entertain arguments in an open and free debate, I’m glad you’re here. To those who decide that the only people you want to hear from are those who think you can make no error, I wish you all the best luck in the world, and I hope you find many of them. (I might suggest, however, that you look into making your journal private: that way, you can invite only those who you already know believe anything you have to say and you never have to worry about someone from the “outside” leaving a comment that might upset you.)
