This is not directed at any one blogger or political commentator out there.  It's directed at everyone out there, and it's directed at myself as well because Lord knows I could never live in a glass house that did not eventually rain sharp points down on me.  Why so angry?  Why the name calling?  What good does it do?  You may think that it's meant as a joke, but let's face facts.  Many people do it far too often to consider it funny any more.  It's a problem.  Whether those jokes take the form of derogatory slurs... racial, sexual, or otherwise... or perhaps it's just taking someone's name and twisting it into something downright mean.

It doesn't do any good.  Yeah, you laughed.  Maybe some other people laughed too.  But I guarantee you, the only people who laughed are the ones who agreed with you before anyway.  And what good is choir preaching when you're trying to convince people that a problem needs to be solved?  Who is your audience?  People who already think you're right, or people who are undecided who you want on your side?  Because you're not going to sway them this way.

Besides, nobody... Bush, Hillary, Obama, McCain... nobody... is as evil as people want to make them out to be.  And if you truly think they are... truly... then you need to step out into the real world.

For my part, from this post forward, I'm going to make every attempt to avoid doing it any more... though I hope that my archives speak to the fact that I've tried to avoid it in the past (not perfectly of course).  I would ask all of you... all of you... to do the same as well.  Not for "the future", "the cause" (whatever yours may be), or even for me... but for yourself.  This much anger isn't healthy people, and it certainly isn't productive either.

* I have closed the comments on this post.  I don't want this to become a he said - she said argument of who is worse than who.  This is about self examination. *