I'm sorry for be so aggressive. In a sad way you have become the victim of my frustration over the last year. You deserve an apology - and an explanation.

For the last year, I have reading the articles of other - shall we say less empathetic people than you. THEY spend their lives daily writing articles where they seem to anticipate the fall of civilization with anticipation. (I was more or less addressing them in my last note to you, for which again I'm sorry.)

For weeks and weeks, I left far gentler and more enlightened comments hoping to try and, if you'll excuse the cliche, 'start a dialogue'. Try and see if there was common ground. Maybe even find that we could talk on an even keel. They didn't respond. I became more and more bold with my comments. Nothing. Finally for the past few weeks I've been leaving variations on these remarks every time I find one of their columns. At that point, I would have welcome them telling their legions of followers to trash me on line because it would have proved they were human beings and not bots. They still didn't respond. To me. They acknowledged other people who were willing to toady to them, but not me.

Now I should tell you up front that two of my closest friends in the world are rock ribbed conservatives. So is everybody in their circle. I've known them for decades and their politics are abhorrent to me. But to even hint that there point of view might be flawed causes them to react with utter disdain and vehemence. I can get along with them on ninety percent of the other things. One of this is as close to family as my actual one. So I do the hardest thing in the world every time I see them. I ignore the horrible things that they say about so much of the world because I love them. Maybe that makes me a coward. But I need them in my life.

The point is, I know conservatives are intractable. I need to believe that progressives - or whatever your politics are - aren't. I have to find people who are willing to listen to arguments and not either dismiss me out of hand ignore me completely. I agree with you in one of your principles of the article I critiqued. I am a student of history. And I think the originalist doctrine of the Constitution that the conservatives believe in is a joke. Its a way of saying to us that there is one law for 'Real Americans' and one law for everybody else. I know, firsthand from my experience from my conservative friends, that in their eyes if the Republican believe in something, it's the 'right thing'. The Democrats are responsible for everything bad, even when they're not in power. And I know that. Five years into the Iraq war they were still blaming everything on the Clinton adminstration. I know you can't reach them.

Yes the world is fucked. I don't deny that. But I also know that doing nothing isn't an option. And so many of your colleagues on this site argue every day in every way that any action we take is pointless. I was actually quoting a couple of them when I attacked you, which again, totally unfair.

A lot of people on this blog are logical and reasonable. Many of them even critique the people I express most of my venom at. But I know as screwed up as the world is and as hopeless as it is, the one thing I know will doom us is indifference. I have come to accept that civilization may end in my lifetime and that I'm powerless to stop it if it does. (Wow that was hard to write.) I know all I can do is what I can for myself to fight it. So many of these columnists seem to say we should even bother with that, that we should just throw up our hands and let it all burn down. I can't understand these people any more than I can understand the people who they rage against.

I hope this explains my attitude a little better. And since you have not dismissed me out of hand like so many of your bretheren, i'D like to think there's the possible to at least talk about this a little more. I wasn't be facetious when I thanked you for responding. You do care a little. So many here don't and I applaud you for that. To use a quote you must me be sick of even if you never heard it before: "I disagree entirely with what you have to say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it." So many people in this world have decided to reject the former part and can't comprehend the latter, and I confess my problem with this. In your case, I agree with it a hundred percent.