Ah, now that’s lovely

Coming right on the heels of my morning plea for a little more civility and a little less invective comes this email to yours truly:

If you fuck with Cindy Sheehan, you will pay

That lovely note was followed by both an aol mailing address and a blogger url…so I think I have what I need to make a report to both, quoting the mailer and getting it on the record that he has threatened me for…having an opinion, apparently.

I’d tell you who it was, but why give him the hits? :-)

It is inconceivable to me that anyone can read what I have written about Mrs. Sheehan and suggest that I have/am/intend to “fuck with her.” My criticisms have much more to do with the people exploiting her than with Mrs. Sheehan, herself. To suggest that I have written about her in a disrespectful, disdainful or in anyway uncompassionate manner is to willfully misinterpret me or to simply be looking for what is not there.

As I wrote below – if all you can offer in your emails and comments – re any blogger, on either side of the aisle – is invective, crude language and sputtering, angry threats, then it might be better to say nothing for the moment, get a hold of yourself, get away from the computer and re-think what you want to say, deciding whether or not you want to communicate an idea that may be reported to the people who keep you online, and to any further authorities, if need be. You can find a BETTER way to express your thoughts and feelings.

And all of that is true of bloggers, too.

In the meantime, my hard drive and back up disc are filling up with a collection of hate mail, email addresses, urls, names, places of employment and other information. I would be terribly distressed to have to use any of that information against anyone else…but if I feel for one second that my safety or the safety of my family is threatened, I will not hesitate to take the information where it needs to go.

This nonsense has got to stop. There is no reason for any blogger, liberal or conservative, Christian or atheist, to have to endure adolescent and vituperative missives, and threats to any person are inexcusable – noone should stand for them. Grow up, people. Grow up!