[Vision2020] just sarcasm? no!

Tue May 13 20:04:13 PDT 2008

Thank you, Kris.  That's very kind of you --

Keely

From: kfreitag at roadrunner.com
To: kjajmix1 at msn.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] just sarcasm?  no!
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 20:02:47 -0700

Keely,

Some of us may not be as eloquent or as verbally
prolific, but can certainly stand behind and enjoy your comments. 

Thanks!

Kris

From:
vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of keely emerinemix

Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 7:32
PM

To: vision2020 at moscow.com

Subject: [Vision2020] just
sarcasm? no!

Visionaires,

I wasn't too terribly worried that my "why not ask a patriarch from the
League of the South?" comment earlier today -- based on
"Donovan's" question about why everyone gets so worked up about race,
gender, sexual orientation, etc. -- would be seen as sarcastic to people. 
It was; I think we all know that I do sarcasm fairly well, sometimes not with
noble intention or honorable result.  I try to apologize immediately and publicly
when I'm merely insulting.

This, however, was something different, and I'd like to address my offlist
correspondent in explaining why I wrote what I wrote:

The question came from either the real Donovan J. Arnold of UI student
government fame or a cadre of Dono-Wannabes using his identity to engage in
debate without the backbone to so -- and I believe that to be the case, based
on similarities in these and in the literary canon of Edna Wilmington, Shirley
Pissedoff, etc., all puppets masterfully engaged by our skylarking Defenders of
All Things Kirk.  Also, I'm pretty familiar with Donovan's rhetoric and
style; this doesn't seem to be the guy I sparred with during the bond
campaign.  Either way, though, the question bothered me in its
quasi-innocence?  Why -- the plaintive questioner wants to know -- are we
all so interested in the ethnic, sexual, religious demographic of an Interfaith
group meeting?  Can't we all just get along, or something like that?

But it's the "real" Donovan who has rudely treated people who are
different from him, whether by one of the above demographic categories or by
holding to political or religious views, perhaps informed by those
demographics, that he disagrees with.  He's made it an issue. 
Further, if today's questioner is a Kirk defender (The Artist Formerly Known As
Edna?), then he is a defender of a religio-political movement that thinks
gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and political beliefs are valid --
necessary -- divisors in society.   No one could defend the Confederacy,
call for the Southern states to secede from the Union,
fly a Confederate flag, and explain slavery as a benefit to black families and
seriously be expected to be seen as a "race-neutral" social
thinker.  Few cling as mightily to "hard" ideas of male headship
and female submission in the church and family, and someday in millennial
society, as the all-male eldership of Christ Church.  
I don't know of any other group that publishes writings that approve of
death-by-stoning of homosexuals once they themselves are in control of society,
and I've rarely read more smug vitriol directed against liberals than that
produced by the paleo-conservative, Deo-Libertarian, paleo-Confederates of
Anselm House.  Remember "liberal women are ugly," anyone?

But regardless of the true identity of the author of the original question,
that person is indisputably a white male, and I find it more than a little
annoying when white guys who trade in social division and benefit from it
expect to be taken seriously when they ask why, by golly, are some of us so
dang wrapped up in the gender, race, orientation stuff.  It's
simple.  We like it when someone other than "you" (or my sons,
my dad, or my husband) advance in society.  

It's really that simple, if a bit sarcastic.

Keely

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