Stand your ground or shut your pie hole!

The Kool-Aid is to the left

This has been on my mind for a while now.

A few weeks ago a friend posted a small article on his blog referring to a get-together he had with some friends. During this time he mentioned that they were drinking wine. Now, the post wasn’t about how great wine is, or how much they were drinking, just mentioned it in passing.

In the comments section, he received this:

>” Hi, It is terrible you drink wine. I would never drink alcohol. A grown adult should be WELL PAST the age where they want to consume a mind-altering drug. And alcohol IS a drug. Just because it's legal doesn't make it right. I suppose you think drinking wine is all romantic and cool and sophisticated, right? Figures. My husband and I never drink wine or any other booze.”<

Ummm…Yeah. Thanks for the input. Now, right off the bat, a GROWN ADULT should recognize the dangers of lecturing to another GROWN ADULT as if they were children. Nothing, underline this, NOTHING is more condescending and insulting.

And nothing is more apt to inspire a violent barrage of verbal verisimilitude either.

The poster didn’t stop there, she went on in another rant:

>”Hi, It's me again. I'm sorry, I keep thinking about your blog, how you just mention casually that you were drinking wine, as if this is the most natural thing in the world, all glamorous and sophisticated. It just drives me BONKERS that people drink wine and other booze! Do you realize that alcohol is a toxic chemical that affects every hormone in your body, and poisons cells? It has been linked to cancer and birth defects. And it is a psychoactive drug! You are a grown adult! Why do you feel the need or desire to consume a psychoactive drug??? My husband and I would NEVER drink wine or any other booze! We experimented with alcohol in our younger days in college in the 70s, but we outgrew all that by the time we were 20 or so! Here I write to wineries and breweries and restaurant review shows and travel shows and cooking shows and newspapers and magazines, all who promote and glorify alcohol, and I try to talk some sense into them, trying to help them realize they should not promote and glorify a toxic, psychoactive drug, and then people like you just negate everything I try to do! You drink wine! And you write about it on the World Wide Web, and make it look all romantic and glamorous! What kind of example is THAT to set? I just don't understand why you drink it. I suppose you think drinking wine is all cool and romantic and sophisticated, right? Because that is how the media portrays it. Well it is not! I wrote a paper on why alcohol is unhealthy and unwholesome, and would like to send it to you. Maybe you could use it here in your blog. But I suppose you won't want to read it, right? Because you don't WANT to know why alcohol is unhealthy and unwholesome. You want that good feeling you get from alcohol, so you will justify it in any way you can. It figures. I have heard it all before, all the excuses people give, like "everything in moderation" and "Jesus drank wine." I address all that in my paper. Which I HOPE you will want to read. But I suppose you won't. Anyway, feel free to email me at ----------- and I'll send it. Take care,

“--------“

Well, although it wasn’t my blog, I couldn’t stop myself. Also, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone by behaving contrary to my beliefs. So I posted this in turn:

>”-----, you speak as if you are talking to ("Lecturing" is more correct) a group of teenagers. Idiot teenagers at that.

It's great that you and your husband don't drink. I myself never drank at ALL, even as a teenager, until I was 34, at which point my taste in some things changed. Now I enjoy alcohol in various forms (Scotch, Beer, Wine, Rum, Absinthe) and in moderation. It doesn't have anything to do with "Sophistication" or "Romance" as you put it. IT TASTES GOOD TO ME. And...Yes, I DO enjoy the toxicity of the drink, it gives me a warm buzzy feeling.

The reasons you list for abstinence are...Paltry, at best. You can get that same toxic environment from other sources without trying (i.e. living in L.A.) Now, if you overdo it, and wind up in the grip of alcoholism, then YES, IT IS BAD FOR YOU. But you could say that about anything! Why don't you lecture on -----'s proliferation of violence in his books, aimed at young people? And what about the guns he writes about, also all over this blog? Also, I don't think he's Catholic, shouldn't we hang him for that? And isn't he friends with some Blacks, Muslims, Asians, etc? What, is he trying to glorify the "Other Than White" crowd? Why not point these things out as well?

You sound suspiciously like someone who has in some way been affected by alcoholism in your family, and perhaps a bit preachy-self righteous as well. I don't give a rap if Jesus drank wine or not, I LIKE it, ergo I shall CONSUME it. People with no self-discipline or control should stay the hell away from it...Perhaps you should alter your rant to focus on the virtues of moderation and understanding the world around you. Because -----‘s right: Studies (VERIFIABLE ones) are more for his argument than yours.

And to be honest, I've met my fair share of people who could use a stiff drink. Or a whack upside the head. Sometimes both.

Unfortunately, you chose to shoot at people who are well armed with information of their own, and it trumps your unfounded ramblings.

Next time, try picking on someone still in high school, they seem to be more your speed.”<

Our Dear Friend didn’t respond, which made me a bit suspicious. I mean, you can have plenty of moral fortitude, and I certainly respect a strong opinion. But when you just lip off with preachy rhetoric like a self righteous pseudo-intellectual two-faced imbecile, I smell a rat.

So I took her advice. No, I DIDN’T stop drinking, but I did write her a polite email asking to see the paper she so generously offered my friend.

Wanna know what she responded with?

>” Hi Bobbe, I did not read your email, I am afraid to. I opened it enough to see your email address and I did not recognize it, so I typed it into Google and up came your name and email, and then I typed your name in Google and up came your blog, and it says you are a "beer connoisseur". This blog was recently updated so you must still be a "beer connoisseur" even after reading my alcohol paper, so I'm guessing that your email was not complimentary. So I don't want to read it, I'm afraid it will be too upsetting. I stand by what I said, that alcohol is unhealthy and unwholesome, and even if it were some kind of a health drink, the very fact that it is a mind-altering drug makes it wrong. We shouldn't use things like that. So if after reading ALL I SAID, and you tell me I'm nuts and that you STILL want to drink beer, that will just make me so mad and sad. And I sure don't need any more of that in my life.

If I am wrong and you AGREED with me and I helped you see the light, then please forgive me. But as I said, your blog is recent and if you HAVE seen the light, I would think you would have deleted that part about beer. But it is there, so I'm thinking that my paper didn't do any good.

Anyway, sorry I couldn't read your email. I'm a basket case from all I have been through on the Internet.

Take care,

“-------“

At this point, it becomes painfully obvious to me that this psychopath obviously cruises the internet looking for keywords like "Wine" "Beer" "Alcohol", etc. and then sends smarmy letters to websites she finds that list such, after which she runs under the nearest bed to avoid any fallout from her ill-concieved rant.

Coward.

Oh, believe me, I mean it in the fullest sense of the word.

COWARD!

Don’t give me that lame-assed bullshit about being through oh-so much stress from the internet. Hey, here’s a good idea: DON’T GO SWIMMING WITH A CUT ON YOUR LEG IN A POOL OF SHARKS, DUMBASS! If you stick it out there, don’t be afraid to get it cut off! I hate people who stick their nose in someone else’s life carrying a flag in one hand and an agenda in the other. And then not have the guts to back up their arguments, or bother doing REAL research to augment their point.

Also, Jerry Falwell just called…He wants his meme back.

It’s great if you have social or religious convictions, and if they have changed your life, so much the better. But watching people like you try to out-God people like me -- "I start every morning with a prayer" vs. "I start every morning with a healthy dose of Glenlevit" -- proves more entertaining than the WWE.

And even faker.

And that shit about setting a bad example…Come bloody on. I would believe that the true culprit may very well be the overzealous bigotry and hypocritical lifestyles masquerading as parenting in this country. Why not start with your own kids. One can but assume they must be just as “basket cases” as you are, after preaching this moral bullshit to their classmates in the schoolyard.

And getting their asses handed to them for it.

So, at the end of the day, when I'm swigging a Chimay Grande Reserva as I bathe in the rejuvenating blood drained from innocent newborns, I view overzealous hypocrisy combined with religious bigotry in much the same way I view my younger brother’s bizarre obsession with Michael Jackson: smugly amusing if seen from afar, extremely frightening if the vortex somehow sucks you in.

Do what you want (particularly if it allows you to feel superior to me), but when you expect me to spend four hours at your graduation party as you (badly) play every song off Greatest Hits: History, Vols. I and II on your violin -- well, you've crossed the line.

I have my limits.

And the moral of the story? Give me a second; I’m still getting to that…

I was genuinely interested in what “-----“ had to say about alcohol & I wish she hadn’t declined to send the paper she offered my friend. Because I wasn’t thinking of writing this article until she did.

>” and then people like you just negate everything I try to do! You drink wine! And you write about it on the World Wide Web, and make it look all romantic and glamorous! What kind of example is THAT to set?”<

The exact same kind that allows people like you to take pot-shots at REAL intellectuals from behind a digital screen without consequence. It is the example of freedom of choice.

You know, she didn’t come right out and SAY she was way too religious for the average zealot, but to me it’s written all over her posts. F’rinstance, if you want to feed pigeons in a park, you don’t go running at them full-bore from the front screaming “I want to feed you, you stupid birds! Starving is wrong! Set an example for the other birds!!!” As an experiment, give that a try and let me know how far it gets you.

But above all, don’t point your plastic finger at me and scream “Alky!” in your loudest hypocritical squeal, telling me I’m setting a bad example for kids.

Because it makes me want to bash your teeth in with a ballpoint hammer.