Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone — “to relax,” I told myself — but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir, Confucius and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”

One day the boss called me in. He said, “Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”

This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”

“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”

“But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.” “It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver.

“You think as much as college professors and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won’t have any money!”

“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

“I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.

They didn’t open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye, “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.” Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just
seemed easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took the final step…I joined the Democratic Party.

The point is not whether or not the DU edits comments or something, it is about an overall outlook, a willingness to hit below the belt.

And the right does a far better job of eating its own than the left does.

For instance, I read Big Lizards a lot. Dafydd is a conservative, he is pro war on terror, he is pro life, he is in fact the read deal. However, he did not toe the Malkin/Rush line on immigration and got some real flack for it from the self styled thought police in the rightie blogosphere. Here was part of his reaction:

Hugh Hewitt never tires of telling us that it was the supporters of the immigration bill who tore the GOP apart by their inflammatory rhetoric. But how is one supposed to respond to anti-bill rhetoric like this? Here is Arizona State Representative Russell Pearce, speaking on last Saturday’s Beltway Boys:

KONDRACKE: OK, did you — I saw you quoted somewhere as saying that Jon Kyl and John McCain, the former prisoner of war and war hero, were traitors. Did you mean that to the country or how did you mean that?

PEARCE: Well, that was taken out of context. What I talked about and have no regrets for is the bill that was run through Congress was treasonous. Actually, it was the sellout of America. It was amnesty to law breakers. It ignored the damages of the crime. It allowed gang bangers to stay here. It allowed convicted felons to stay here. It allowed terrorists to stay here.

In fact, the bill explicitly excluded all three of those categories from consideration for provisional Z-visas. Someone could argue that the prohibition wasn’t strong enough; but to say the bill “allowed” them to stay is a flat, vicious lie.

However, I’m more interested in the fact that, according to Rep. Pearce, I am a traitor to my country, because I supported treason against the United States of America. I see no other way to read that, and the distinction he purports to draw is nonsense on stilts: By definition, anyone who supports treason is a traitor

This is the kind of thing that became all to common in the debate and because of that I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people. So now when they talk about how bad the left is {and they are of course} I often think…look whose talking.

I particularly liked:

His kids are just self-satisfied silver spoon conservatives who make liberals sick to their stomachs.

I can understand why our friends on the left have BDS dislike President Bush, but what do his children have to do with it? Doesn’t Cindy realize that everyone tries to provide the best start in life they can for their kids?

It’d work best delivered personally, though. So consider this an open invitation to come by my house and address me face to face. Just don’t come by when I’m away, as now – my dad checks on the place for me and he might not realize the venom spewing lefty is there for a casual debate.

But seriously, if somebody argued with me like that, I’d find myself, despite my right wing obstinacy, irresistably drawn towards their position. It’s impossible to understand how people like Cindy lose elections.

All along the line, the people lying, stealing, and manipulating to advance their own agenda, supposedly in order to protect the freedoms we live under, are the left. Sure we have some bad actors on the right, but they’re isolated and often marginalized (most vast right wing conspirators of my acquaintance roll their eyes at the mention of Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter). These people are mainstream, or at least are setting the agenda for the left as a whole.

And they are despicable proto-totalitarians.

- BBH -

- BBH –

All I get are incoherently-worded profane death threats. Huh, I guess the quality of my liberal readers isn’t as good as yours. Where do you buy them?