Seen on Facebook; An extraordinarily well written response to an anti-choice post

[The_Commonist]

345. OK, so we had a nice dinner, a nice conversation...

...did a few other things and then got nekkid and rolled around in each other's sweat. Because that's what adults do! I didn't have time to get back to this until just now. Life and jobs and stuff...

Basically, she thinks that OF COURSE!!! men, at least the ones who are involved in the woman's life, should never be told to STFU about what they want. Whether it has to do with kids or abortions or anything else for that matter. Does the woman have the ultimate say when it comes to keeping or terminating a pregnancy? Of course, that's a given, and I have never disagreed with that. Should the man's opinion carry some weight? Absolutely.

Now this doesn't mean that one night stands, or abusive, controlling men who will use a pregnancy to "keep her down" should have the same say as someone who is married and expecting to have children anyway. Unless I'm misreading it, that was something like leftohiolib's situation. Yes, there are assholes out there. But to treat someone you are in a loving relationship like one of those assholes is, well, assholeish.

It was pretty much the conversation I was I expecting us to have, and then it turned to the expected darker side. Which was, of course, when I mentioned that this was because of thread I was involved in on Democratic Underground. I didn't mention that until after we talked about abortion, because I didn't want to color her perceptions of why I was asking the question. She doesn't like you people. And understandably so. Maybe she would in real life, in fact I'm sure of it, but she believes that the anonymity has turned too many of you into raging assholes. Her words, not mine.

"You actually went to the comments and you actually went against the prevailing orthodoxy there? What is wrong with you? You know better than that. Those people are largely attention seeking, black and white absolutists, lonely old crones and shut-ins who don't seem to realize that life happens in the grey areas."

"I know, I thought it was interesting..."

"Yeah, well, removing a scab can be interesting as well. Do you find the comments section at Fox News to be interesting? Because a large number of DUers are their ideological mirror images."

Please understand that my wife is a registered Deomcrat, (I am not. I'm a member of the Working Families Party) an Elizabeth Warren fan, has been all over the Hobby Lobby thing on Facebook, reads the Rude Pundit on his blog, not here, has several "gay boyfriends," and has slowly but surely helped and applauded as her very conservative sister has come to see the light. Among other things.

"Look, it's a great place to quickly find all kinds of news, but between the tribalism and the cliquishness, the constant outrage and constant bickering, I can't see how you can spend more than about two minutes at that place. I think it was YOU who called it a pit of vipers! (it was) And now you want me to get involved?" I asked her if she would be willing to look over this thread, and if she wanted to read and/or approve my reply before I posted it. She did not.

Then we talked about outrage. She is, rightly, tired of the outrage. And this place, along with so much of the internet, and our society in general, is addicted to outrage. It's an adrenaline rush. It's like a roller-coaster ride of constant outrage. It's become a cash cow. The owners of this website (and so many others) profit from YOUR outrage. It's so tiring. Constantly harping on allies over minutia. Constantly dehumanizing our "opposition." To the point of turning our allies into "the opposition" just because there's nobody else handy to lash out at. No wonder this country is so fucked up. We treat people with whom we agree on 98.7 percent of everything like shit because there's one point of disagreement on some anonymous discussion forum.

Anyway, that's just scratching the surface. I don't really want to get more into it, and really don't want to get banned from this place. I have a more highly tuned outrage filter than she does, and I don't really want to share any more of the words she had for and about you, our friends and allies.

It was interesting, it was pretty much what I expected, it hasn't changed my mind that men or anyone else shouldn't simply be told to STFU, and I understand a little more about why my wife never comes here anymore.

Cheers!