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Winning friends; influencing people.

Y’know, Ted—can I call you Ted? Ted, I could, if I wanted, thank you, for finally giving me a glimpse of what it is y’all think you see when you take a look at Kerry; I could sneer at you, and tell you that your partisan ideal of God is a pathetically transparent crutch, devoid of mystery and grace, part and parcel of the exclusionary rhetoric that has so bitterly divided a country so sorely in need of uniting these past four years. I could point out that the soldiers whose vote you so assiduously champion are many of them paid so little they must feed their families with food stamps—which puts them squarely in the freeloaders’ camp, whose vote you so thoughtlessly disparage. I could slyly allude to the charming hubris in whingeing on about the unworkable inefficiencies of public works over the internet—one of many great public works that make this modern world of ours at all possible—but it’s an old and tired point, worn smooth with overuse. (Besides, you doubtless go out of your way to use private toll roads, and think the free market would do an even better job of keeping cholera at bay; also, I’d have to hear you rationalize an administration that’s presided over one of the largest public-sector growth spurts in history. I’d really rather not.) —I could be rude, and unload a mercilessly colorful stream of invective that attempts to plumb the willful depths of your ignorance; I could be shrill, and hold you up as an example of all that is wrong, as one of the tuneless tootling flutes that bedevil our sleep and hold us back from all that we could be; I could be deferential, since the ground I need to cover has already been well and truly mapped. I could be a mensch, and let you know, privately, that anyone who goes on about how dumb Democrats are had probably better know how to spell Republicans. (Hint: there’s only one “i.”)

But what I’m gonna do, Ted, is this: I’m gonna tell you to stop sending me unsolicited commercial email. This may be one of the most polarized elections ever, or at least in a while, but if there’s one thing that will bring us all together, Democrat and Republican, Green and Libertarian, and unite us in a common cause, it’s an undying hatred of spam.

Verb. sap. and all that, old boy.

  1. lovesick alien    Nov 1, 08:37 am    #
    C'mon -- he can't even spell Republican correctly in his own header.

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