For those who have been following such things, the last week or so in our small town has seen quite a frenzy of tolerance. As I count the lumps on my head, I am not sure how much more tolerance I can take. I have posted some comments on this whole imbroglio, but rest assured that there is a lot more going on than what makes the papers and the blogs. Watching this controversy from a distance is a lot like watching a water polo game where one of the teams is not too scrupulous about what they do below the surface.
The events of the last day or so have been the ne plus ultra of intolerista behavior, and I confess that I am teeming with observations on the subject. But on the advice of my attorney, who is a fine fellow,and very wise in the ways of the world, I refrain.
The reasons for doing so should be obvious. Suppose the Seattle Post-Intelliwhacker published a scoop on how Moscow is being overrun by Klingons and orcs. And suppose they pointed to the damning evidence of orcs opening flower shops, and sipping espresso in their little orc-havens that they are pleased to call coffee shops, ha! And they all deny that they are Klingons and orcs, which is exactly what Klingons and orcs would need to do in such circumstances, hmmm?
Now suppose the evidence produced in order to advance this claim was a series of quotations from a handful of other people who felt exactly the same way for no particular reason, reinforced by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s identification of everything north of Riggins as a hate group, the editorial position of several Trekkie journals, along with a college professor or two who have written learned articles on how American society is inherently Klingonist. “All pervasive. It’s everywhere, man,” said one of them. “It’s just not as bad in the blue states.”
Now suppose further that because of all this balder and dash I had a heated exchange with the editors of the Whacker, and the writer of the article, and inspired by the events as they were unfolding, I identified their behavior in creative and colorful ways. Suppose some of my sentences had six or seven adjectives. Then, if a suit for defamation were ever brought, there I would be, sitting on the stand, and the attorney for the bad guys would be asking me these questions, see? And he would say things like, “And is it true, Mr. Wilson, that you told the author of this article that he was cooking his lies in old grease, that his arguments were demented and twaddlesome, that his ignorance could cover several continents like a down comforter, that his syllogisms were clearly suffering from some sort of bad juju, and that he needed to stuff all his libels back into the jar and screw a lid on it? And did you say that a city editor needed to do more than sit on the desk beside the computer monitor like some sort of defamatory chunder monkey? Did you say these things?” And I would look across the courtroom, and my attorney would look at me with sad eyes. And I would be sad too.