Because I don't like 'fighting' on someone else's site...

This morning I posted something over at Raise The Hammer on a discussion about the Federal Building's imminent demise. The article can be found here, while my comment can be found here.

My comment included this:

'Live with a cripple long enough, and you learn how to limp.'

For which I was immediately assailed, taking to task for...excoriated over:

By Wheelchairbound (anonymous)
Posted January 15, 2011 09:18:08

Mystoneycreek said "'Live with a cripple long enough, and you learn how to limp"

How insensitive of you. If anyone is 'crippled' it's your notion of those who are bound by circumstance or accident to live their lives in more confined realities. You should open your mind up to the potential these people have. Not everyone can be a Stephen Hawking but many I know would challenge your assertion that living among those who have challenges lessens one.

Sharpen up you moron!

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Comment Score: -1 (1 vote)

So, as my subject line states, as I don't like to make a mess on someone else's boards, I'll say what I have to say here.

First off, I'm not inclined to be that receptive to someone telling me how to express myself. That's not the world I live in. I conduct myself with propriety at all times, I'm guided by principles and mores that I'm confident pass muster. As well, I accept what other people say, and in the manner which they're inclined to say it, and I leave it at that. If someone implies something by way of their style, if how they're saying what they're saying might be considered a little 'frictional', unless it's completely acidic, blisteringly rude or outright profane, I'm likely to shrug and concentrate on the meat of the matter, the point they're trying to express.

(I also do this when it comes to thoughts, philosophies, stances by clearly-labelled groups: I don't care one whit whether someone is broadcasting from behind this group's banner, or that cadre's flag. I'm only interested in the merits of what they're saying. To wit; if someone who is ideologically aligned with me says something that makes me either guffaw, or mutter 'Shite.', then the fact that we share a common secret handshake is immaterial.)

Conversely, I have no time for someone attempting to lecture me about my own conduct. Don't like what I'm saying, or the way in which I'm saying it? No problem; tell me why, state your reasons without getting personal, but don't think for a second that you calling me names is going to somehow sway me. In the case of Wheelchairbound, it's pretty clear to me that their anger fuels them more than the cogency of their thoughts.

Secondly, it's not my fault if someone cannot fathom the subtext, subtlety or imagery of something I've said....and instead acts on their personal triggers to respond. And frankly, the quote I offered, 'Live with a cripple long enough and you learn how to limp' has a profound enough message in it to transcend the Politically Correct transgression I've seemingly committed.The message, 'If you hang around someone who is 'afflicted'...either by a mad mood, a bad outlook, a self-destructive set of behaviours...then it's almost certain that -unless you're incredibly aware and incredibly equipped to prevent any influence- you're almost certainly liable to take on some of this person's characteristics. (For the sake of thoroughness, the opposite is true: if you, for instance, live with a person who is endemically positive, who is a dynamo, a real force for making the most of any situation, who is maybe especially empathetic, then it's a good bet that you're going to be affected accordingly.)

I would never apologize for using a phrase that I happen to hold near and dear to my heart and believe holds tremendous wisdom, when taken as it has been, here. Perhaps this whole interlude is the result of unacceptable connotation, perhaps it's as simple as me seeing 'cripple' in this maxim in a particular way, a way in which the responder just isn't willing to consider. (Really; who even uses the word 'cripple' to refer to someone who's incapacitated, afflicted, challenged? Nobody I spend time with. Are we going to take the verb 'to cripple' and consider that verboten, too?) Nor am I going to come back with some puerile -read that as: 'insulting' or 'patronizing'- notion of how much I understand and appreciate the challenges and travails that anyone 'crippled' has to undertake. I don't, and would never claim to. My experience with anyone that Wheelchairbound seems to have a need to stand up for is tangental at best.

I will say that I'm sorry that we live in a time when people are Hell-bent on venting their self-righteous indignation...instead of making some effort to see that you can't control how everyone else behaves, or better yet, that maybe there's something in what that person's saying that warrants a little more credence than their 'dullness as a moron' might otherwise indicate.

'Us vs Them', indeed.