I am exhausted.
I am depressed.
I am so completely tired of having to deal with cry babies who cannot let go of their childhood demons.
People who explain every crappy thing they do, or comment they make that is hurtful, or misjudgement they make, by saying it must be the influence of the rotten childhood they had.
I want to just shake them and tell them to get over it!
For crying out loud, I had a really crappy childhood, too. Probably crappier than most. So did my sister. And we have both moved on to have full lives, with people we love and who love us. Tomorrow holds all the promise of wonder and joy that it always does. Yesterday can never return.
My gosh! We were beaten, mentally tortured, deprived of love, locked up for long periods, subjected to terrible indignities, molested by an older family member, institutionalized, disowned, raped....you name it, it probably happened to one or both of us. We've both had periods of alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity, suicidal ideations, abusive relationships, running away.... Our father failed to protect us. He was even an abuser, at times. The nuns failed to protect us. Counselors failed to protect us.
You know what? Life goes on. With or without us, life goes on. And you know what else? Life can be full of really good things! You have to decide that you want your life filled with good things in order for there to be room for them. It has to be a conscious decision.
You can dwell on the past, constantly reliving the horrors and pains, or you can put them aside and make room for good things and great joy to take up the space.
And I am really, really tired of the FLDS being put under a microscope. I'm tired of them being held to a higher standard than we hold ourselves and our own communities to. And I am tired of people asking intrusive, personal questions of Pliggy and others, as though they are entitled to that information.
And I am tired of the nastiness. The abject meanspiritedness of the questioners and those who feel they have the right to sit in judgment. I want them to all just go away and stop being so damn ugly!
I am a tough old bird, yet I find myself in tears at the end of a day on the blogs.
I can be ruthless when I need to get something accomplished. But even in my ruthlessness, I respect certain boundaries. These people don't even have a sense of boundaries!
Laurie and her ilk don't bother me anywhere nearly as much as the pseudo-inquisitive, 'I'm curious and want to learn', bunch. Laurie, et al, are at least up front with their hatred and agenda.
It's the 'rebeckah' types who make me want to slap the bejesus out of them. She's just the most recent of that type....and to think I went out of my way for her. I connected her with a mother from Shortcreek who was very, very kind to her! She says things that are so judgemental and condescending, as though the folks reading her posts are less than human, ergo not deserving of courteous language. And when confronted she uses her very tired crap about 'just wanting to be objective'. Crap! And she seems to believe she is rather intelligent. Makes me laugh when people do that...I'm guessing she's 120, maybe 125....not a lick over! And she is the worst of the using her childhood as an excuse types! Oh my gosh is that getting lame!
And the whole damn bunch get to me with their abject refusal to even acknowledge cultural differences. Never mind understanding the huge impact those differences have on perceptions.
There is a language difference. Both in the use of words and terms and understandings, and in the seeming literalness of the FLDS speech. For the most part their speech is devoid of inuendo or sarcasm. And they don't seem to look for it, or recognize it in others. Some, like "pliggy", "cheese", "rose", and a few others, who are regulars on the blogs seem to be picking it up, and even using it, from time to time...but overall, it is clearly a cultural difference that needs to be acknowledged by anyone who intends to enter into any serious dialogue with the group.
This standard setting is really getting to me...
Yesterday there were comments about what the twin towns look like...nasty comments....It makes me wonder if some of these folks who are posting live in some sort of Ozzie and Harriet, white picket fence bubble, that they never leave. Obviously they have never driven through rural Pennsylvania's small towns....
And I guess they've never seen the devastation to "Main St." in small towns all across the country...the shuttered store fronts and run down buildings, with no people and no businesses...
And they've never seen the sun dried lawns of even the affluent neighborhoods of Southern California...
But mostly I get hurt, not angry, just hurt when folks like Laurie tell me that the women I have become friends with are not real. That they are men posing as women to rope me in....that is the biggest pile of crap I've heard in a long time....but others read that and wonder...they already are ready to believe the worst about this community...then they read that kind of garbage...
And, I know it isn't true...I know that I have become friends with these wonderful women...and that they aren't stupid, or brainwashed, or trapped...no more so than anyone else is...
Hell, everyone feels trapped by their own lives from time to time...
Everyone feels subservient to others, from time to time....Everyone feels stupid, from time to time...
And we're all brainwashed, to some degree...it's called differential association....It's part of living the human condition....
I wish I could fix things. I wish I had pixie dust. I'd use some of it in my own life, for sure. But mostly I would share it....
I think, in some ways, all that has happened has caused some good things to happen. It has certainly opened up the communication between the community and the rest of the world. And I do think there are some folks who have learned that it is a good community. And I have made new friends...and to me, that is laways good....
But my growing knowledge has made me sad, too....and sometimes I just want to scream that I already have enough sad stories and people I am responsible for understanding and caring for in my life....
When I'm being all sorts of rational and intelligent, I tell myself, and others, I am an agnostic...but when I am feeling so overburdened, I become God-believing very quickly!!!! I start remembering the lessons of my childhood, that God never gives anyone more to bear than they are capable of carrying...that everything has a purpose....
I just can't figure out what my purpose in this saga is...it keeps escaping my understanding...but I seem to get in deeper and deeper...
And right now, I just want to throttle all these people who are so hurtful.....
7 years ago
17 comments:
I love you PA mom!
I love you, too!
And the 'mama bear' comes out in me when these idiots treat you so badly....
What makes people think that they can pick and pry into the most personal aspects of another's life?
And what makes them think they have the right to sit in judgment on anyone?
Gggrrrrrrrrrr
Ditto on the "bad childhood" part. A person's life is what they choose it to be. You can have a horrible childhood and still be a wonderful person. Or you could have a wonderful childhood and choose to be a miserable person.
Isn't free agency grand?
We can come from the most horrible of conditions and still become the best of people if we choose it.
You must have a strong spirit to put up with all the crap on the blogs, especially the polygamy blogs. I don't spend a lot of time on them these days but I've noticed that they seem to draw out the haters in droves. I sometimes wonder if the "curious" aren't people that have already made up their minds and are looking for flaws to exploite.
Have you been over to Third's blog? Mostly positive comments over there but then she's not near as widely read as Brooke Adams.
Those haters are there for just that purpose - to hate. They strike me as the kind that would kick dogs if nobody was looking. They've found an easy target in a pretty anonymous forum so they let their "inner-selves" loose to play.
Sad they don't seem to understand or to care in some cases that they are posting about and to *real people*.
Sad.
I want you to know I have found you to be a constant voice of reason on the Polygamy blog since the whole thing started. It's been a reassuring reminder that the whole world isn't just a bunch of bullies just waiting for an opportunity to get a good kick in.
wwjd?-
Again, thank you so much!!!!
I find myself getting pretty short tempered, of late...maybe it's time to take a break...we'll see...
You also always try to be reasoned and not nasty....and I appreciate that...and I'm sure the folks from the FLDS do, too....
I can't imagine how much it must hurt for those members of the community who try to be 'spokespersons' for the group to read the crap that people write...my heart breaks for them...but I also find myself admiring them and their ability to read the crap and continue to post rationally, despite it...
R
I had to take a step back when the blogs began affecting my mood during the day. That's why I was MIA for a while. The children had been returned to their rightful places for the most part and CPS had been swatted with a rolled up newspaper so I felt okay stepping out of the fray for a while.
I don't know that what I post will change anybody's opinion but I feel strongly it's the right thing to do to stand in defense of good and innocent people regardless.
Hang in there!
I know what you mean...I have days where I get nothing productive done for my job because I am so unsettled by this.
I have been lucky to have several folks from the FLDS community write to me and be a background support system...without them, I know I would have stopped along time ago...
I guess I keep thinking that if I keep writing, no matter how hard it is, somedays, that maybe one person will begin to change..or one new person will see things a little differently....
I don't know...it's weird...I have no idea why I feel so compelled...other than a sense that a really horrible transgression is taking place in front of me and I have a moral obligation to speak out....
But it seems like there is no end to the stream of nastiness and nasty people...one or two leave and three or four replace them.....
this 'harley' is a box of rocks...and 'rebeckah' is a pain in the arse...she thinks she's all sorts of objective and so on...but she 'sounds' nasty as nails half the time...and when you challenge her she says it's because of a rotten marriage or a rotten childhood...or that she has aspergers or some other excuse for bad behavior...and she is nosy as all get out....
I'm sorry...I'm tired and bitchy....I'll revive....tomorrow will be a better day!
R
Okay, Regina, this is the one and only time I respond to you. 1) Except for the Asperger's I do not use "excuses". I acknowledge the areas in my childhood that leave me prone to making bad judgements and just lashing out. I am also willing to look any specific complaint against my behavior to try and either make it better or acknowledge a mistake. I've never once seen you apologize for your name calling or your judgementalism. (She's not intellegent, maybe 120, 125 at best?!? Good Lord you try to be nasty, don't you? Perhaps in your world IQ is a big issue, in mine it's honesty, fairness, etc.)
You bother me because you attack and villify anyone who disagrees with you and then you point to someone like me and try to make me out to be stupid (judging by your IQ remarks) and vindictive. You disregard my willingness to learn. You call my questions intrusive, but don't explain, you overlook my every attempt to be honest, my williness to apologize for harshness, or my attempts to be objective. In short, you are everything and more that you accuse me of being. You want me to leave the field to sycophants who simply say "Yes, oh wise and mighty Regina"? Okay fine. I'm gone. I tried to understand, I tried to open lines of communication, and tried to be honest and speak as clearly as Asperger's allows me to. Apparently I failed, because Regina who knows so much has decided so.
(Tell me, Regina, what do you know about Asperger's anyway?)
So fine, I'm gone. Have fun and don't be surprise when the next raid happens because you and people like you would rather villify people than listen to their concerns.
rebeckah,
Well, true to form, you used aspergers as an excuse, again. You ask what I know about the disorder. Well, for one I have aspergers. Two, I have a son on the spectrum. If nothing else, those two things qualify me to speak to the issue.
However, having a challenge, in and of itself, does little more than allow me to give personal 'testimony', years of professional training and education on family dynamics, child developmental threshholds, specific courses and trainings o spectrum related disordeers, etc., those things qualify me to speak on a professional level.
That being said, I come to the blogs as an individual, lay person.
I have often refrained from attacking you because I took you at your word that you were trying to learn. I never disclosed that you had told me about having aspergers because I considered that to have occured in a private email. However, excuses are only good for so long. At some point a person has an obligation to learn coping skills and to intellectually organize appropriate delivery and behavior into their panoply of presentations. After awhile, it is no longer acceptable to stomp on people's toes and then say "I'm sorry." and expect that to give you some sort of pass on good manners. After awhile you learn not to step on toes. Or you get called on having failed in your responsibility to be, at the least, respectful and courteous.
You're right, I can be nasty as nails. You have no idea the level of restraint I show on that blog. I do so out of respect for the FLDS folks and others who have more delicate sensibilities than I have. And I show restraint because it is Brooke's blog, and I respect her and her efforts to paint a fairer picture of the FLDS community than other reporters.
I am very bright. So what. I don't need to say that. You know it. It is a non issue. You are the one constantly saying you are bright and capable of understanding, etc.
I've found that people who are truly very bright don't need to tell anyone. It is evident. And they are usually resented for it.
I do not attack willy-nilly. I attack those who are unscrupulous in the way they speak of, and to, members of the FLDS community. A bit of tit for tat...It's just that I am better at it and it stings more...folks don't like to be on the recieving end of nastiness, especially when the return volley is so targeted...and I assure you, mine is quite targeted.
I feel particularly resentful about how you behave. I took you at your word that you would refrain from insensitive remarks in order to open communication that might help you with your grandchild. I know how kindly you were treated. And I know that kindness was shown to you despite you having made several very pointed and critical remarks about Warren Jeffs, a person that is held in the highest esteem by the FLDS community. And you continue to make critical remarks, with zero effort to case your remarks in any kind of qualified or sensitive way.
That is brutish and insensitive and, at this point, unforgivable.
I frankly don't care whether you ever post on the blogs again, or not. That is your choice. But as you said to me, if you post, I will continue to call you on your unmasked nastiness and hostilities.
As for me appologizing? Once in awhile, when I have been particularly hostile, more because of my own mood or exhaustion, than the party deserving the level I dished, I have appologized. When I have been wrong on a factual matter, I have appologized and corrected myself. Do I believe I owe you an appology? No way. You owe the folks who have to read your crap about their lives and choices and people they love and simply forgive you...those are the people who are owed an appology....
I have little patience for sniveling, and I have given you wide berth...but, as you can see, I'm finished....
Thanks for the post on my blog! I love South Carolina so of course your comments pleased me. Pennsylvania is quite lovely too! Good luck wherever you end up.
~rebeckah,
Well, true to form, you used aspergers as an excuse, again.
No, I spoke about a fact. I have difficulty with social appropriateness.~
You ask what I know about the disorder. Well, for one I have aspergers. Two, I have a son on the spectrum. If nothing else, those two things qualify me to speak to the issue.
However, having a challenge, in and of itself, does little more than allow me to give personal 'testimony', years of professional training and education on family dynamics, child developmental threshholds, specific courses and trainings o spectrum related disordeers, etc., those things qualify me to speak on a professional level.
~You are not a professional on Asperger's. You are a person in denial.~
~I have often refrained from attacking you because I took you at your word that you were trying to learn. I never disclosed that you had told me about having aspergers because I considered that to have occured in a private email. However, excuses are only good for so long. At some point a person has an obligation to learn coping skills and to intellectually organize appropriate delivery and behavior into their panoply of presentations.~
I see, so a person with down syndrome has no "excuse" not to learn physics and my autistic grandson, who has been special classes for the last two years has no "excuse" for not speaking. You don't know how hard I work at my appropriateness. You don't know how often I ask for people to EXPLAIN what I'm doing wrong and instead I get -- you're making excuses.
~After awhile, it is no longer acceptable to stomp on people's toes and then say "I'm sorry." and expect that to give you some sort of pass on good manners. After awhile you learn not to step on toes. Or you get called on having failed in your responsibility to be, at the least, respectful and courteous.~
A) I still try to be respectful and courteous. Whether you choose to believe it or not, I do.
B) Unlike you, I apologize when I fail to live up to my standards of courtesy through bad temper. You just justify yours. (Oh, they deserve it because they...)
~You're right, I can be nasty as nails. You have no idea the level of restraint I show on that blog.~
Frankly, I'm not impressed by your restraint. You are still nasty, rude, and above all a major hypocrite. If it is wrong to treat the FLDS judgementally then it is wrong to treat anyone hypocritally. So you keep telling yourself and everyone else what a wonderful person you are.
~I do so out of respect for the FLDS folks and others who have more delicate sensibilities than I have. And I show restraint because it is Brooke's blog, and I respect her and her efforts to paint a fairer picture of the FLDS community than other reporters.
I am very bright. So what. I don't need to say that. You know it.
~Actually, I DON'T know it. I know you say you are. I know you say you are successful and educated and whatever else. Most of all, I know you have one set of standards for the world and quite another set for yourself.
~It is a non issue. You are the one constantly saying you are bright and capable of understanding, etc.
I've found that people who are truly very bright don't need to tell anyone. It is evident.
~Then you feel the need to point it out over and over again, why? Read what I've said again, I have said repeatedly that I am REASONABLY intelligent. I am a voracious reader and have accumulated a lot of knowlege, much of it fairly useless. If something interests me, I research it. You have placed your own issues on me.
~I do not attack willy-nilly. I attack those who are unscrupulous in the way they speak of, and to, members of the FLDS community. A bit of tit for tat...It's just that I am better at it and it stings more...folks don't like to be on the recieving end of nastiness, especially when the return volley is so targeted...and I assure you, mine is quite targeted.~
That does not make it right. If attacking, prejudging, assumptions are wrong, then they're wrong. Again I point out that you are a hypocrite.
~I feel particularly resentful about how you behave. I took you at your word that you would refrain from insensitive remarks in order to open communication that might help you with your grandchild. I know how kindly you were treated. And I know that kindness was shown to you despite you having made several very pointed and critical remarks about Warren Jeffs, a person that is held in the highest esteem by the FLDS community.~
I don't know what you are talking about. As far as I know my communications with the person you've named have been neutral to positive. If I have committed some offense against this person I wish that she would tell me so. YOU are making vague accusations that I flatly don't understand.
~And you continue to make critical remarks, with zero effort to case your remarks in any kind of qualified or sensitive way.
That is brutish and insensitive and, at this point, unforgivable.~
I don't need your forgiveness and I do not make an effort to be brutal -- unlike you, obviously. Yet another example of you projecting your own issues onto me.
~As for me appologizing? Once in awhile, when I have been particularly hostile, more because of my own mood or exhaustion, than the party deserving the level I dished, I have appologized. When I have been wrong on a factual matter, I have appologized and corrected myself. Do I believe I owe you an appology? No way.~
I did not ask for, nor was I fishing for, an apology.
~You owe the folks who have to read your crap about their lives and choices and people they love and simply forgive you...those are the people who are owed an appology....~
As I told Pliggy, anything that I've said that was innaccurate or wrongly phrased I will take responsibility for. I will either apologize or rephrase things. I HAVE apologized a few times for letting my temper go. Unlike you, I don't judge whether or not the person "deserves" the apology. I apologize because it's the right thing to do when I have been offensive.
~I have little patience for sniveling, and I have given you wide berth...but, as you can see, I'm finished....~
What you call sniveling, I call honesty. I can believe that you have Asperger's, apparently you are also pretty darned narcissistic. You insist on coloring what I've posted or said by your own negative view and you read things into what I post that aren't even there. You are not honest, you are not specific, you merely attack, insinuate, villify and imagine wrongs where none was intended. I say what I mean. I say EXACTLY what I mean and do NOT, ever, use innuendo. So if you've read innuendo, you've read it yourself.
Go on, Regina, pat yourself on the back for how wonderful, kind, smart, and oh, yes, persecuted you are. You are annoyed by me because I'm too much like you. That's all there is to it.
Rebeckah,
You and I are nothing alike.
For one thing, I listen, and learn. For another, I take great care with my words, and how they will impact the reader(s).
For another, I don't wear my past, or any challenges I may have, on my shirt sleeve. I do not snivel, and I do not expect others to make exceptions for me.
I do not set up insane or ludicrous examples as you did when referring to a person with Down Syndrome or your grandson who is non-verbal. However, there are some persons with Down Syndrome who are quite capable of taking physics, and if I were an advocate for that family, I would help in whatever way I could to see that their child had that opportunity if he/she wanted it. Not every person with Down Syndrome has retardation as an aspect of their individual presentation. Just as every child, or person, with Autism is not without speech.
Persons with challenges, particularly social challenges, who have an awareness of their individual deficits, and have a normal I.Q., are responsible for making whatever adjustments necessary in their presentation to 'fit in' with the larger society. If you have a deficit in your ability to communicate in a written forum, perhaps you should choose a different type of forum for your expressions. Or, in the alternative, understand that you will take 'hits' when your deficits make your communication offensive.
I do that every day of my life. If I were to write, in this kind of forum, the way I normally speak, this forum would quickly become "X" rated. My speech is normally liberally sprinkled with the 'f' bomb, along with other colorful descriptors, all of the time. I also have a very, very low tolerance for people who are illogical and pendantic.
It is one thing to start out with beliefs that are skewed, or in error. It is quite another to cling to those beliefs when their error is repeatedly shown and the truth presented. To me that speaks to the person either being grossly inadequate to the challengeges of discourse, or just plain locked in bigotry. Neither of which belong in civil discourse.
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. In fact, I rather enjoy a good argument. I do, however, have a problem with people who repeatedly say the same thing, over and over, without ability to substantiate their claim, or facts to back them up.
You repeatedly say, "I don't approve of any kind of underage marriage, in any group. It should always be prosecuted." Over, and over, and over. This is your refrain. Whether it is germaine to the conversation or not. That is your refrain. You use it to preface almost everything you put forth. It is unnecessary. It is harsh. It has been discussed ad nauseum. And it has the overtones of accusation. You make it sound as though you personally have the right to set the terms for discussion, to wit an acknowledgment of underage marriage(s), and a public statement of denouncement, before any other conversation can move forward. It seems to overshadow everything you have to say.
Then, failing to get anything from your insistance to address that, again, you often get onto your schtick about Warren Jeffs. Again, as though you are the one to determine the parameters of discussion.
No one cares what you think about Jeffs. The only purpose you doing this serves is to derail any possibility of moving past two areas that are not "solvable" at this juncture. You use your 'terms' to remind people to be angry. To make sure that there are lines drawn. To reinforce hostile attitudes.
And you bring nothing new to any discussion. And you always, always add some little bit about your own disabilities, and offer preemptive appologies for your presentation. That tells me you know quite clearly that the way you say things is hurtful and creates problems. To me, that means you need to change how you do things. Awareness creates responsibility. You shirk responsibility and use your "disabilities" to constantly create hostile tones and dialogue.
As I said, you bring nothing new. You speak as though you are in charge. You offer hostile, mean, flat statements about your personal beliefs constantly and inappropriately.
And you have employed Laurie's tact of casting aspersions elsewhere to take the heat off of yourself. To divert responsibility. That is a childish, distasteful tactic.
You claim you want to learn. That no longer works. You have the tools for learning, i.e. you have at least two email addresses available to you for asking questions. You don't use those. And you don't ask questions publically that are of a 'learning' nature. You ask prying questions, the answers leading to nothing more than your increased knowledge of an individual's life. You do not ask questions about practice, temets, doctrine, culture, etc. So your "I want to learn" claims are hollow bull crap.
You say your communications with my friend have been 'neutral to positive'. Are you so simple that you believe that she doesn't read the blogs. Are you so simple that you think you can be two different people, based on personal need and expediency? And do you think you can do this undiscovered? Are you so arrogant as to believe everyone is a nitwit? Have you bought into that, too?
You are just one of many of your ilk. You folks come and go. I suppose it is my hope that every once in awhile, one of you actually does start to shift how you think. Every once in awhile, one of you really does have your eyes opened to the flaws in the popular portrayal of the community and its people.
Clearly you will not be counted in those who have learned and changed.
You're too busy beating your own drum, listening to your own off key tones, to learn or change.
As I said before, I don't give a hoot what you say or do. I am telling you, again, if you post without concern for the feelings of those who read your posts, I will call you on it. Other than that, unless you publically, and consistently behave differently, I consider you just one more nasty fool to come down the pike.
Regina, you can consider me whatever you like, it doesn't make it true. I discovered Asperger's a little over a year and a half ago. I have finally, FINALLY, figured out the "problem" I've been trying to overcome. I have received no counseling, no social training, and every step of progress I've made had been through my own effort in buying self-help books and trying to assimilate them.
You say I am fixated on one issue -- I guess you could be right. I have a tendency to do that. Underaged marriage is a very, very big deal to me.
You say I speak as though I was in charge. No, I speak of what my opinion is.
You say I should go to a different forum. Trust me, in writing is the best forum I can go to.
You say that we are nothing alike, and yet you judge me without knowing me, you name call, disparage and try to rebuke me, not for edification, but simply because I have violated "your" rules of conduct, which apparently don't apply to you, just to everyone else. You judge, without knowing, that I should somehow KNOW that my persistence with one area is offensive -- and apparently it doesn't remind your proffessional and educated self at all of the obsessions that people with autism get. You could have educated me, you chose to berate me. You chose that because you felt, or feel, that you know more about me, my capabilities and my thought processes than I do. You, in essence, call me a liar, but did you ever once think to ask me if I intended to be offensive. (I won't lie, sometimes I did intend to be offensive. Like you, I can and have lashed out.)
You claim to be an advocate, educated, smart, and so very protective of the poor, culturally different FLDS. Asperger's is the ultimate in cultural differences.
You could have made a difference. You could have approached me with an iota of respect and suggested that I ask about practices, tenets, doctrins, etc. I would have loved to. I thought they would be prying. Now you would have been taking a risk to do so. If I was the kind of person you have judged me to be I would have blown you off. You didn't take the chance though. You are what you hate, Regina. You are judgemental, vicious and you too focus on a very few, highly likely to be resolved, issues. Polygamy isn't going to be either legalized or decriminalized in the near future. The FLDS will continue to have misunderstandings with mainstream America, especially as long as they listen to people like you who harp on their persecution and victimization but do not advise them to take control of their own lives, to reach out and try to understand even as they want to be understood. But why should you advise them to do that, you already understand everything perfectly.
Excuse me, make that "highly UNlikely to be resolved".
Rebeckah,
This is not a self-help forum for aspergers. I have no responsibility, in this forum, to reach out to you, or anyone else, who touts their difficulties. If you think I should have, it is one more instance where you are looking for sympathy and understanding for bad behavior, where none is forthcoming.
I could do many things. I pick my battles. Or, conversely, sometimes they pick me. Helping you, or anyone else with communication challenges, in this forum, is both inappropriate, and not a battle I choose to take on.
If you know that obsessive behaviors are part of your make-up, then you are the one responsible for staying aware of that and questioning yourself on whether you are beating a dead horse, or not. If you fail to do that, and you get called on it, you own it. Not the person who didn't treat you with kid gloves. Kid glove treatment isn't an entitlement. And I am the last person to look to for it.
You say I lecture and come across as a 'know-it-all', perhaps that is part of my communication challenges. So what? I can live with coming across that way, to some. Apparently I don't come across that way to many others. My daily email is testament to that.
Perhaps, whether consciously or otherwise, you have predetermined what your opinion is of the FLDS community, and you are not as open to learning as you are to being heard moralizing and spreading your own opinions. Consequently, you take umbrage at my very clear counter-balance to your emotionalism based opinions. Rather than look at the sociological and cultural aspects of the issue, you become repetetive and pendantic. And accuse me of what you are doing.
I don't disagree with you that young marriage is not a good thing, for a myriad of reasons, in our larger, American culture. I also recognize that we have several sub-cultures where very different standards and expectations are reasonable within their unique communities. Further, without looking at what the term "marriage" means in this particular sub-culture, one cannot pass judgment on whether their practice is appropriate, or not. They do not define marriage in the same way as we do, in our larger culture. One also has to look at what the cultural expectations and practices are concerning consumation of 'marriage'. Again, it is different for them than what we practice. An additional, and extremely important consideration is one of how to best approach change. If, after real knowledge is applied to an issue, it is clear that some shift in practice is desireable, what is the optimum way to achieve that shift?
I for one do not cotton to those who tell me what to do. Nor do I cotton to those who moralize, preach, or set pre-conditions to dialogue. I would further venture, based on many, many years of training and experience in negotiations and work at shifting paradigms, that the FLDS community isn't going to cotton to this approach, either. Creating trust and mutual respect, finding areas of agreement and commonality, reinforcing those, are all ways to set the stage for meaningful dialogue toward sustainable change.
Not using a battering ram.
And not behaving with an air of hostility and righteousness in a public forum. That does nthing to increase the probability of realistic dialogue.
If I take exception to something, I use a great deal more tact than indulging in a public display of demands and angers. And I always remember it isn't about me, my personal opinions, or my own needs. I remember it is about trying to use my skills to help a people move to a position where what they want, relative isolation and privacy, without persecution, is a realistic goal. All of which means they must position themselves in such a way as to be scrupulously above board when examined. Only then will the demands for transparency and prying eyes be off them. Only then will they be able to enjoy the rights to choice of when and where to interact the rest of us enjoy everyday.
What you do, how you do it, serves no one but you. It feeds your apparent need to moralize, based on your personal definitions and personal standards...
And if that is your choice...I can live with that. I cannot live with you having used my goodwill to accomplish what you wanted and then watch you turn around and be publically hateful, without my speaking up.
I am not going to address this any further. I have given you the benefit of my observations, as well as my suggestions. I have other work to do and this has taken far too much time, as it is.
Name call and accuse all you want......life goes on
It's funny seeing you two Asperger folks go at it.
Um, have you two ever thought about how you have problems relating to people who are normal let alone another Asperger person?
Actually, it's an interesting revelation into where you two are coming from.
Both of you guys are great, really. You're not going to agree and I'll bet you could continue this debate ad nauseum.
Ron-
Don't waste your time or money on popcorn, the curtain done fell.....
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