What I Like About Blogging

If you look at the comments from my post of a couple of days ago, you will find in the comments the following:

Andy, ALL parents have felt that unreasonable anger towards their child(ren) at one time or another; and if a parent says they haven't, they're damned liars. You handled it like a pro...

I am very impressed on your insights into the cause of your anger...I wish more parents could be so insightful and honest with themselves.
LC/IB delftsman3

Immediately following this comment there is this:

Delftsman3 said what I would have said: all parents have felt that unreasonable anger. I myself would have to set my child down in the crib, walk away, and just find a pillow to scream into or something. Sometimes, just getting outside the door and taking a deep breath was enough to put me back on the right track...
Lilith Saintcrow

Now both Lilith and Delftsman left more in their comment, but what I wanted to point out was not the substance of their comments, but the fact that they agreed. Because if you visit their respective homepages, you would realize rapidly that Delftsman3 is politically very conservative and Lilith Saintcrow is much more liberal. Yet here they are agreeing on something deep and fundamental: parenting.

I am a progressive and I make no apologies for it. Nonetheless, I am a human and a recovering alcoholic before I am a progressive. And yes, there is that angry part of me that reminds me so much of that classic line from Conan the movie:

Q: Conan, what is good in life?
A: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women!

But this part of me is not the only side I have. You see, I can also answer the question of what is good in life with:

Make friends of such enemies as I can and to treat the others with the respect I demand for myself.

To work together with them to build a better world

and to check out the tits of their women. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be cold out and those beautiful perky breasts will have those nice pencil eraser nipples poking right through their shirts... (okay, I'm over it. Keep in mind that I was told that I could not touch my wife for the past six weeks as she recovered from the c-section. And of course, now there's the baby...)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I am a peacemaker. Always have been. Back when I was drinking, I'd be the one trying to break up fights before they started. Now I take angry customers and try to calm them. If I could do anything today I would get rid of the hate spewing talking heads of Rove, Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Rielly and have conservatives and liberals talk to each other. Directly, without any filter.

Conservatives want their kids to have good lives too. There is a lot more common ground than you would think. But right now there is a lot of money to be made off of stirring up anger. A lot of political capital is tied up into us being deeply divided. I see more of the problem being on the conservative side, but I am sure my side has a role in this also. There has to be a better way for us as a people than what we are doing now.

Peace.