Why I No Longer Aspire To Politeness At All

Certain long-time readers--to whom I will remain unfailingly polite, even when making suggestions for their fornicative activities--have occasionally lamented my penchant for assertive language. They base this lament on a sense that we should all be civil, whatever that means, and that if I were more civil, more people might visit my blog.

The fallacies are obvious, at least to me. I don't actually care whether anyone reads this blog. I'm just venting. That some of my friends choose to read is flattering and wunnerful. If they don't choose to read, they don't. If strangers visit, and once in a while they do, they're welcome. They're welcome to comment, too, no matter how fucktarded their POV (that doesn't happen often, and it hasn't happened in recent memory, just in case you might thing this comment is pointed at you). In fact, more fucktarded comments come from close friends than from strangers. But I digress. The point is that I don't care whether anyone's reading.

The other fallacy may be less obvious. Civility, like everything, is relative (yeah, I'm a relativistic nihilist, get over it). Incivility does not consist simply of using certain words deemed taboo. What's more uncivil, a random unknown mostly anonymous blogger screaming "Fuck," or a sitting United States Representative interrupting the President's speech to lie about the President lying? I submit that I'm not the uncivil one here.

I grow weary of right-wingers lying. I grow weary of their faux outrage. I will no longer suffer it kindly, not that I ever have. Roy Edroso's Village Voice summary of the absolutely batshit insane defenses of Joe Wilson's unconscionable behavior is as good a place as any to explore the issue.

On the other hand, discourse isn't civil. It's the price of America, which I still think is a pretty good thing. Of course it can be better, but frankly, Love It or Leave It has always been the most ridiculous and unAmerican of sentiments.

The thought that America is a pretty good thing probably makes me a bad lib. I know I'm a materialist. I think I'm an okay materialist; I like stuff, and I like other people to have stuff, too, especially food, shelter, clothing, equal treatment under the law, and preferential treatment under the law for those who have not enjoyed the same equal treatment under the law enjoyed by those of us who happen to be white, male, and not poor. I like sufficient asphalt to keep the rest of the assholes on the road out of my fucking way. I like trees, in their place. I like nature, in its place. I like clean water and safe food and the opportunity to obtain health care. I also happen to like stuff. Get over it.

We don't have to breathe fire over these people who stand in the way of so many of those very good things. We beat their asses in the last election. Of course we should leverage that, and of course our elected representatives should stand up to their terrorist liemongering. And they shouldn't bother with being civil about it, because the other side isn't. That's the real problem here; when they get to scream racist, hateful lies, then define the terms of the discussion in such a way that disagreement with racist, hateful lies is uncivil, we've fucked up pretty royally.

So, y'know, fuck you.

Update: Republicans claim efforts to punish Joe Wilson's deliberate and egregious violation of House rules are a partisan distraction from their patriotic bipartisan duty to make up new lies about health care reform proposals, Obama's legitimacy, and the nature of communism. They also whine about Pete Stark saying that some batshit Astroturfed town brawl protester wasn't worth the urine to piss on. Right-wingers are like that annoying kid standing an inch away from you, chanting, "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you." Knee him in the balls, step on his nose while he's down, and move on, secure in the knowledge that you've dealt with him on the only level he understands, ignoring his outraged whinyass tittybaby cries that you wronged him.

Update II: This is one of the best days of my life, because this post made Swami say "Fuck." In public. Three times. It just doesn't get much better than that, unless you're talking about, say, an essentially nekkid Lucy Liu lashed to a Saint Andrews Cross with little bits of leather (and I can't wait to see what kind of perverse search hits I start getting from that text string right there).