Paul, thanks for calling a brief timeout. I agree that I spoke harshly, maybe too harshly, in my last post.
Ann, I'm sure Roger did not intend to imply that you were lying or deliberately quoting untrustworthy sources.
I wholeheartedly agree. Roger, I don't think that you have ever spoken to me less than respectfully. I don't for a moment think that you meant to imply that I was deliberately lying. I think, rather, that you were telling me that I should know better than to quote the New York Times, because the NYT is always lying. I don't consider that an insult of me, but I do consider it a more or less blanket dismissal of
everyone else who thinks that the NYT is a good source of information. That in itself is very troubling to me.
Personally I have changed both my political and my religious views radically during my lifetime, and I know what a dizzying mental landslide that is. But having changed my own views like this has told me that there is more than one way of looking at things. Admittedly, it is very easy, when you have changed your views, to contemptuously dismiss everything else you have believed in before. I have definitely been guilty of of this kind of personal rigidity and condemnation of others myself. If some of you think that I am radical now, you should have heard me twenty years ago.
One thing that I think that I have learnt is that even though I firmly believe that I am right about the things that I believe in, others may be right about other things. I am
not willing to back down from the positions I hold. Those of you who have watched me bitterly attack "death-of-Lois" fics must know what I mean. I
do believe in the things I believe in. I know why I think the way I do, and I know what my reasons are. I believe in my own beliefs. I believe in them so strongly that I am depressed every time a death-of-Lois fic or video is even posted on these boards. But much as it pains me, I have to admit that those FoLCs who post them and who read them and watch them - most of them females, too, which pains me even more - these FoLCs have their own reasons for liking to see Lois dead, at least in some fics and some videos. Their reasons for liking those fics and videos are different from my reasons for hating them. My reasons are still right. But the other FoLCs' reasons are right, too, at least for them.
This is my point. We all have our own reasons. We all have our own points. I believe strongly in my reasons and my points, and I would dearly love to convert others so that they believe in the things I believe in, too. But I have to admit, nevertheless, that others have seen things about life and the world that I haven't seen myself. My reasons are right, and I have the right to believe that my reasons are the best. I have the right to believe in what I believe. But I shouldn't allow myself to think that people who disagree with me are wrong by definition. I shouldn't allow myself to believe that they don't have a point. Because they do. Everyone does, except the stark raving lunatics. And I'm not so sure about them.
So, Roger, if you want to take to heart just one of the things I said during our discussion, then please believe in this. Don't tell yourself that liberals are wrong about everything that they believe in. Because frankly, they are not.
Ann
