Wednesday, November 07, 2007

What the heck do you people think I owe you?

Please excuse the blunt tone of the title but I'm getting a little tired of the attitude of comments from our lefty readers. Here is a typical comment:

when you make a valid point counter to the group-think, there comes the move that i call "the dodge" or the one i call "the deflection" or the all too familiar "i get it, you don't, and i'm not going to try to explain it to you" excuse. the latter is michele's fav.

hang out long enough and you'll see the pattern. eventually you get used to it.
It's anonymous, of course. What this commenter fails to realize is that he isn't paying me to respond to him, there's really no incentive for me to do so. Replying to comments takes time away from other things I have to do. Since I have limited time, I will only respond to one or two iterations of an argument. If I see that it will take too long for me to respond, I won't. If I see that we are going over the same arguments, I get bored and stop responding. Sometimes I just don't have the time to continue the argument even when I really would like to do so. So, it really isn't me saying, "I understand it you don't" so there! It's more like, "I have a reason but I don't have the time to get into it because I have to study for a Greek quiz or I have to work on my exegesis paper or read the stack of books that I need to read for the final or have to use my limited time to write posts before I take my daughters to school." Or it could be, "Man! I've explained my position twice, I'm outta here." Or "There is no way I'm going to explain why I said that because it will take me three pages of explanation and I won't get a thoughtful response to it."

I have nothing to prove on this blog, I'm not your educator, nor your mom and it's not my job to help you to see my point. I don't care if you do. When I started this blog, all I wanted to do was share interesting links and have a place to vent. I'm happy to give you a place to respond and have a little dialogue but I'm not here to defend my point of view. I don't have to because I don't want to convince anyone of my point of view. It's just not that important to me.

There are probably other bloggers out there who may be interested in convincing you of supply-side economics, the reason we went into Iraq (it wasn't just about WMDs -- and don't even bother trying to engage me on that one), why we may need to do precision bombing in Iran, why the Democrat nominee will probably lose the election next year (and given my terrible track record predicting what the voters will do, it's a good thing I won't defend it :-), why Thompson would make a good president (yeah, even that -- his campaign isn't paying me to do PR), why universal healthcare would be the worst thing to happen to this nation, why an isolationist like Ron Paul is the wrong candidate to nominate during a time of global conflict, etc.

Now, as you may have notice I've only listed political positions. I'm more than happy to engage in a dialogue about religion and Christianity and I really do want to convince you of my position on that :-) But my time is limited and I probably won't keep up my side of the argument in a timely manner.

So, I'm sorry but I'm not the type of blogger who will engage in long, heated debates. I have a reason for my position on issues and I know that there are many of you who don't get it and think I'm an idiot. That's OK. I'm secure in the knowledge of my ability to understand complex issues and don't need your validation.