Now, there's an oxymoron just waiting to happen.
Due respect to the admirable human ability to learn and adapt, I've always felt like trying to teach someone to be sensitive is like trying to teach them to be tall.
Put less philosophically, you either is or you ain't.
Some years ago, in one moment of pique or another, I pulled the verbal trigger on somebody who was, to any reasonably functioning set of eyes and ears, being rude and crude.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that when I pull that trigger, I have what seems to be a God given gift for inflicting way more than the minimum daily requirement of humiliation on the inflictee.
A short while later, a friend/witness to the carnage took me aside and suggested that perhaps I could have found a more subtle, gracious way to enlighten the rude crudist as to their transgression.
Lennon-esque visions of "love is all you need" notwithstanding, I responded, with what probably could pass as Vulcan like logic, that if one were capable of understanding and accepting that their behavior was rude, crude and insensitive, they very likely wouldn't be...wait for it...insensitive in the first place.
In other words, the guy who doesn't hold the door open for you to enter as he exits the restaurant isn't going to start holding doors open just because you point out to him that he lacks a certain awareness of other people besides himself on the planet.
I tend to be reminded of that little scratch on the human schematic when I read the rants and raves masquerading as rhetoric of those who profess both a passionate commitment to what currently passes for conservatism as well as an equally passionate hatred for anyone offering up anything that might meander from the manifesto.
Okay, I'm through playing with my word toys now, let's spell it out.
Committed, unwavering, passionate adherence to a belief is not only a gift of prerogative afforded us by the system of government our founding fathers created, it is, no matter the belief itself, a legitimate act of patriotism.
The "voice of the people" and the freedom to both use it and hear it is a privilege even the most erudite can only begin to elucidate.
And when the voice is articulate, inspiring, motivational, thoughtful, provocative, lucid, even poetic, it creates a like atmosphere in which any positive, life affirming change is possible.
When, though, the voice is paltry, pedantic, vitriolic, even vicious, it, too, creates a like atmosphere where chaos flourishes and the darker sides of our nature block out any real light that might be available to show us the way out.
When the voice says that Meg Whitman must be accountable for not having been registered to vote, let alone actually vote, until 2002, it is raising a legitimate point worthy of discussion and debate.
When the voice calls her a whore, it is demeaning the freedom that ironically allows such a slander.
When the voice says that Christine O'Donnell should explain the discrepancies in her personal financial history, it is asking a reasonable question of someone who is asking for the right to make financial decisions that will affect large numbers of people.
When the voice calls her a witch, it is a worthless,childish giggle at a childhood learning experience.
And when the voice says that Barack Obama should rightly be measured by the accomplishments, or failures, of his two year old administration, it is speaking the words that the founders intended to be spoken in the process of checks and balances and accountability.
When the voice calls him a Muslim terrorist, it is betrayed by its own sound, the sound of gurgling and choking, hysteria disguised as passion, ignorance disguised as enlightenment.
That sound is not patriotic.
It's simply pathetic.
Those who make that sound are rude, crude and insensitive.
And should be ashamed.
Chances are they won't be.
If they were capable of understanding and accepting that their behavior was rude, crude and insensitive, they very likely wouldn't be...wait for it...insensitive in the first place.
Amen, brother.
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