My wife, DeLann, is out of town. She went down to Texas to visit her aging, ailing parents. Her parents are more or less at the 1970’s level technologically. They have a television and an old-fashioned phone, but they have not made the leap to computers, much less the internet. I know. Remarkable!
Del, in her normal day to day life spends much time ranting on The Rant. It’s a private Facebook group. I am a member, but I rarely participate. The amount of traffic it puts forth often overwhelms my sleepy Facebook life. I get excited when I see the little red indicator of outside communication, but when the numeral is above five, it usually indicates a whole lot of ranting going on. In this sense, I see it as a ‘scarlet letter.’ The Rant is ultra-liberal Democrat. I think that’s a fair assessment. Its chief poobah ‘hates’ Republicans, the ‘corporatists’ and Dominionists. I could probably remove the sanitizing quotes from ‘hates’ and still be accurate. He’ll fight ’em tooth and nail, down to the point of fomenting, or at least participating in, revolution. He worries that the DHS is watching him. They might. If my sister in law, who works at NSA, were not so properly tight-lipped about her day job, perhaps I could confirm. “Hey Deb! Watching this?”
At the same time, and for the past six months or so, I’ve been reading the Facebook updates of an old friend of mine, one who I have blogged about here before. If you are her Facebook friend, one of about one thousand, you may participate in the ‘diary that talks back.’ I sometimes do, though the level of the discourse is so high that it takes nerves of steel. These are a bunch of writers, lawyers, businessmen, artists, and generally well-to-do, highly accomplished mostly New Yorkers. That is not to say that The Rant is not also high caliber “discussion.” The Ranters know their way around the English language for the most part. The chief pooh bah of ‘the diary that talks back’ is a woman I went to high school with. She is a conservative Republican, and something of a libertarian, small “l.” Soon after I joined Facebook, I looked her up and ‘friended’ her. I soon limited her traffic to me, since, well, she’s a conservative Republican.
That’s the backstory to today’s story. Today, with Del gone, I decided to check out my old friend’s ‘diary.’ I got in on one early, about “Mitt,” and stayed in there pitching for awhile. Following that, since I was all warmed up in a writerly sense, I decided to go update the Ranters regarding Del’s situation, and while I was at it, post something inflammatory there by way of a guest rant.
I want now to examine the differences, and especially the similarities, between the “two sides.”
Ranters disapprove of Dominionists. Ditto, so far as I can tell, the Diarists. The Diarists do not foam at the mouth about it. The opinion there is more that they are entitled to that opinion, but they need to not be making a theocracy out of our democracy. The Diarists do not get on the topic very often because the hostess does not have that in her mind as a preoccupation. I think if I posited seriously the idea that God should steer the ship of state and that all other opinions were blasphemous and not worthy of inclusion in national discourse, the hostess would ignore me, and possibly de-friend me. It’s a no-brainer. Literally.
Ranters disapprove of the rapacious corporate mentality. Ditto, absolutely, the Diarists. There is much discussion of this on the “diary that talks back,” since the hostess is a lawyer and is involved in a corporate operation, representing books to publishers. She speaks out eloquently and often against corporate lawlessness, greed, and incivility. Her eloquence is tempered always by lawyerly use of language. She does not tend to rant. In fact, I’ve never heard her rant. She makes, therefore, a devastating civic case against such fraud and irresponsibility. Her case is ‘water tight.’ The Ranter’s would be proud. Seriously.
Ranters don’t like Santorum or social engineering. The Diarists don’t hear all that much about Santorum, because the hostess doesn’t seem to deem him worth talking about. The hostess has spoken about Gingrich, but I will not repeat or even paraphrase her remarks in public. The Ranters would again, I think, be succored. That is not ‘suckered,’ suckers! Re: social engineering, the hostess, as a smart woman, does not think much of any infringement of the rights of women. She thinks so little of it, that she only mentions it in general terms. She won’t go after Rush all that much, because she finds him a professional blowhard. She reserves her writings for serious matters. She does excoriate the lefties, and the ‘dems’ for getting so up in arms about ‘entertainment.’
Ranters don’t like Mittens. Ditto the Diarists. That was the topic of today’s diary. The exact moniker, ‘mittens,’ in lower case, sic., was employed there this morning, though not by the hostess.
Ranters and Diarists alike are skeptical of Fox News.
So what are the differences, apart from the tone of the dialogue? The Diarists, by and large, favor reducing taxes by reducing the federal government. They are in favor, perhaps more than the Ranters, of participation in foreign wars and actions. On this matter, I am siding with the Ranters. The Ranters might be more fond of Maddow than my friend, the diarist. Other Diarists are more or less on board with being skeptical of Maddow. The Diarists are fans of Coulter. I find this ‘hard to swallow.’ She’s quite the blowhard; but we, the Diarists and I, consider this mere political entertainment. It’s the hostess’ cocktail party. She tolerates some dissent. Maybe ranters, by definition, are less tolerant.
The issue of tone is the central one for me. I find, that after six months of reading my brilliant old friend, I have developed a healthy respect for the conservative political opinion. I don’t line up completely, but I find the Diary, which is merely a personal Facebook page, and not a members only group, much more civil and therefore, persuasive. If the Ranters could observe these conservative Republicans, who will indeed vote, over my shoulder, and actually read it, understand it, and to that extent appreciate it, they would find quite a few applause lines. It makes it very much harder to simply condemn and label that reasoned opinion, with which you may not agree. It makes it very much harder to get one’s panties in a twist about the fate of our democracy, knowing that it is not ‘dems’ and ‘repukes’ that are voting, but rather, thinking people. These are very smart people, both Diarists and Ranters. The very de-escalation of rhetoric is possibly our only hope of salvation. I can’t believe I’m writing that!
How truly tragic it would be to let it boil over into revolution because of ‘entertainment’ and ‘strategy.’ I am not fond of political obstructionism. If the discourse is to be persuasive, it must be well-reasoned and lacking in insult. Take care not to over generalize. I cannot figure out for the life of me, by words – my only arsenal – how to put the “tolerant” back into the “rant.” It’s in there, ranters. Do you see it?