The OCD Diaries

November 16, 2016

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers on My Right

The morning after Donald Trump was elected president, I posted this:

I didn’t vote for Trump. I don’t like him. I didn’t like Bush, either. But the left survived Bush and the right survived Obama. We’ll survive Trump, too. If we as individuals keep doing our best every day and be the blessing to friends, family and colleagues, everything will be fine. A better world starts with you.

I also posted this, after seeing a Trump supporter gloat over the despair of Hillary Clinton supporters:

To the FB connection gloating about how great he feels to see HRC voters at work dejected, you are part of the problem. People on both sides have been brutal this election cycle. You could have set aside political differences and been decent to your fellow human. You could have shown some compassion and humility. Instead, you were an asshole — no better than those who may have unfairly labeled you for supporting Trump.

Some of you didn’t like that, saying I should have shown the same compassion for Trump supporters traumatized for being called racist and sexist. Truth is, I find it just as bad when Trump voters are called names. As the old saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Mood music:

There’s plenty of blame to go around for this shitshow. Here are my thoughts.

When bigotry isn’t a deal breaker
It’s true, millions who voted for Trump are not racist or sexist. They chose based on years of economic frustration and a feeling that the left talks down to them. Some of you complained bitterly about being branded a hater. Fair enough. I know a lot of Trump supporters who are great people. But they still voted for someone who used hateful rhetoric to rile up people who are in fact bigots, and a lot of good people have a problem with that. Instead of whining about being labeled something you’re not, maybe you should listen to the other side and clarify your own views.

Personally, I thought Trump’s candidacy should have fizzled after he mocked a disabled reporter. I’m still floored that so many voters were OK with that. Do I think Trump himself is a sexist bigot? Well, he has placed women in high positions over the course of his career and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is devout in his Jewish faith. But his comments about women in that leaked Access Hollywood tape are impossible to ignore.

I’m also not encouraged by Trump’s decision to make Steve Bannon a senior White House advisor. Bannon, head of Breitbart News before joining Trump’s campaign, has linked Breitbart to the “alt-right,” a movement of people who view immigration and multiculturalism as a threat to the white race.

The inconvenience of truth
Instead of reasoned debate, a lot of you shared articles on Facebook that were false and often malicious. This was truly a bipartisan failing. Left- and right-leaning friends were equally prolific in sharing content that fit their preconceived notions. I often wondered if people were even clicking on these articles and reading them first. I have no doubt people saw headlines they liked and that was enough.

Posting untrue tripe on Facebook is nothing new, but some of you really upped your game this year.

Free speech didn’t end with the election
Some of you have complained that the election is over and that people unhappy with the result need to grow up, get over it and move on. That’s some bullshit right there. When Obama won in 2008 and 2012, a lot of you reacted the same way Clinton supporters are reacting now. You had your right to a mourning period. So do they.

And just as you are entitled to your opinions, so are those who don’t agree with you. Telling people to shut up makes you a hypocrite.

The left must listen
Now that we have President Trump, the left must come clean about a huge failing that helped feed the man’s rise. Specifically, some of you have repeatedly talked down to conservatives in rural America like they’re idiots when in fact they work hard and want the best for their families, friends and neighbors, just like you. Are there bigots among them? Yes. But most people are just trying to survive economically, and the global economy has not been kind to them. You should spend less time talking at them about how things should be and more time listening.

My friend Nick Selby said it best in this blog post: “Democrats believe truly that they have moral righteousness and certitude of intelligence. You don’t.”

Democrats also have to acknowledge that they left blue-collar America behind long ago. In the early 21st century, the party shifted from being one that stood by union workers to one that catered to Wall Street. Raising money became the priority, and the party lost its way. A lot of the people left in the lurch became Trump supporters. The same is true for the Republican party, but the left needs to own its own part in this.

I still believe humanity is good. I’ve seen people who disagree politically help each other time and again in hours of need and enjoy each other’s company during good times. When bad things happen, the best of humanity always steps up to alleviate pain and suffering, regardless of political beliefs.

Now, if we could just stop being assholes the rest of the time.

June 23, 2016June 23, 2016

Vote Your Conscience and Get Off My Lawn

I’ve been mostly silent about this year’s presidential contest. Since I’ve been pretty opinionated about such things in the past, this has worried some of my loved ones. And so, for this one post, I will tell you what I think.

Mood music:

My worldview is much different than it was in my younger years. I used to think the fate of humanity hinged on each election. If the candidate I supported was in a tight race or losing, it would make me sick.

As I’ve gone through my personal growth journey, I’ve found that national and global politics are less important to me than the local politics. Tip O’Neill once said that all politics are local, but he was from a time when politicians knew how to compromise at the national level. Things are so polarized now that nothing of consequence can get done.

Still, I care about who my president is, because they are our representative to the world. I like my presidents to be moderate, middle-of-the-road pragmatists who don’t let ideology blind them to situations that demand flexible thinking.

In a lot of ways, Hillary Clinton would be my ideal candidate. She’s not as moderate as her husband was, but I think her experience as a senator and secretary of state would serve the country well on the global stage. I also think it’s past time we had a woman as president.

But as an internet security guy, I can’t get past the recklessness of how she managed her email during her State Department years. She had access to extremely sensitive information on the country’s diplomatic and military dealings, and to run that data through an unprotected server in her house may well have endangered the lives of agents in the field.

We in the security profession have been telling businesses for years that conducting business via personal email is a bad idea; that company email systems with extra security protections are a must. Since I’ve written a lot about that, it would be hypocritical of me to vote for someone who can’t abide by the same rules.

Donald Trump is an entertainer, a mogul with a mixed business record and a flamethrower. His campaign speeches have been blatantly racist and sexist. His big boast is that he’ll build a wall all along the Mexican border and have Mexico pay for it. If elected, he won’t accomplish any of the things he says he’ll get done (not that I think that’s a bad thing). He’ll just keep making dumb statements that will make us look bad to the rest of the world. So, no, I won’t be voting for him.

The Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, is more my speed: socially liberal and fiscally conservative. He’s been a governor, so he has executive experience the others don’t have. His running mate, Bill Weld, was my governor back in the ’90s, and I thought he did a good job cutting government waste and holding the line on taxes. I see Johnson-Weld as the most harmless choice, so that’s where my vote is going.

More than one person has said I’m foolish for voting for someone who “can’t possibly” win. That’s a foolish line of thinking in any election cycle. The most important thing a voter can do is obey their conscience. It’s one thing if you have two choices where one is close enough to your convictions and most likely to win to make sense. This year, in my opinion, both major-party candidates are too far off the reservation for me to support.

Feel free to try and change my mind. I doubt you will.

June 8, 2015

Big Dumb Politics

Here’s yet another example of the broken political system in the United States. It’s not enough to disagree with people and have a respectful debate. Nope. When we disagree with the other side, we resort to Facebook memes like this:

Vote Republican meme

This one comes from the left side of politics. The suggestion is that if you’re a Republican, you’re a racist who hates everything sane in the world. I know a lot of conservatives, and I can’t say I’ve met one who hates everything on this list.

The “We hate blacks” and “We hate blacks voting” is perhaps the most ridiculous of all. The creators of this piece of stupidity apparently forgot the long history of Southern Democrats owning slaves before the Civil War and fighting Civil Rights tooth and nail in the 1960s.

Republicans hate education and feel women are “a lesser cut of meat”? I know many Republicans who care very much about education. And that lesser meat quote came from one deeply misguided individual.

Conservatives aren’t innocent victims here. They’ve produced more than their fair share of vitriol. Case in point, this meme suggesting only liberal Democrats would go shoot up a movie theater.

Democrats are murderers

The trash flows both ways.

April 19, 2015April 19, 2015

Two Days, Three Shitty Anniversaries And One Bloody Month

Today — April 19, and tomorrow, April 20 — we have a trio of tragedies to remember.

Full disclosure: I’m about to steal liberally from Wikipedia.

April 19, 1993: Waco, Texas

The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), accompanied by several members of the media, attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located 9 miles (14 km) east-northeast of Waco, Texas. On February 28, shortly after the attempt to serve the warrant, an intense gun battle erupted, lasting nearly 2 hours. In this armed exchange, four agents and six Branch Davidians were killed. Upon the ATF’s failure to execute the search warrant, a siege was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The siege ended 50 days later when a fire destroyed the compound when a second assault was launched. 76 people (24 of them British nationals) died in the fire, including more than 20 children, two pregnant women, and the sect leader David Koresh.

April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City

The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It would remain the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injured more than 680 people. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage. Extensive rescue efforts were undertaken by local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies in the wake of the bombing, and substantial donations were received from across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated eleven of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers who assisted in rescue and recovery operations.

Within 90 minutes of the explosion, Timothy McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Terry Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested and within days both were charged. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. McVeigh, an American militia movement sympathizer, had detonated an explosive-filled Ryder truck parked in front of the building. McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. Motivated by his hatred of the federal government and angered by what he perceived as its mishandling of the Waco Siege (1993) and the Ruby Ridge incident (1992), McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at Waco.

April 20, 1999: Columbine High School

The Columbine High School massacre (often known simply as Columbine) occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and 1 teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. The pair then committed suicide. It is the fourth-deadliest school massacre in United States history, after the 1927 Bath School disaster, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, and the 1966 University of Texas massacre, and the deadliest for an American high school.

April is also a bloody month for other days, like the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007 and the start of such bloody conflicts as the American Revolution and the Civil War. I could mention dozens of other bloody events that happened in April, but I think this is quite enough for now. If you want a fuller accounting of the bloodshed, check out this article by Chaotic Ramblings

I pray for everyone who died in those tragedies. As I write this, the sun is shining through my window, warming my hands as I pound away on the keyboard. I’m going to make this a good day, despite those bad memories.

I suggest you do the same.

September 4, 2014

Opinions Are Like Assholes, Especially on Facebook

There’s an old saying that opinions are like assholes: everyone has one. Nothing amplifies the point like a typical day on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media.

Mood music:

The scenario typically unfolds in five steps:

Someone posts a status update with emotion. It can be anger over personal situations (they stubbed a toe), sports (their favored team lost), politics, etc. Or it can be something whimsical or nostalgic, like marveling at how fast time moves.
Someone reads more into said post than what may have been intended. This annoys or angers them.
They put an annoyed comment under the status update. “Stop whining and accept life,” for example.
Three or more bystanders see the comment and get upset.
They make a comment about the comment.

Achievement unlocked: a full-throated Facebook drama.

I’ve received my fair share of emotional comments, negative and positive, over the years. I’m fine with that, because as a writer I know my strong opinion will be met with another strong opinion. I even welcome it, because passionate discussion can make us all wiser.

That is, until people get mean. Telling someone to fuck off or go kill themselves if they don’t like life’s curve balls is a pretty good example of that. Name calling also fall into this category.

When someone goes there, I shut them down. I ignore them and move on, because once someone goes there, nothing good is going to come of it.

But the drama isn’t always that cut-and-dried.

Sometimes, good people misinterpret other people’s posts and say regrettable things before thinking it through. This is usually because you can’t read a person’s intent online the same way you can when face to face. I’ve seen good people who love each other get mean on Facebook for this simple reason.

It’s unfortunate.

The online world is not same as the real world. We’ve had thousands of years to learn how to talk to each other in person, and we’re still a long way from mastering the art of personal communication.

We’ve had far less time to learn how to talk to each other online, which means we still pretty much suck at it.

I’m not going to tell people what to post or how to react to someone else’s posts. I’m still far too amateur at this to do that.

I will, however, suggest that we stop and think before diving in to the comments section.

If we pause first or seek clarification of what someone’s status update means, we may avoid some of the online drama that’s become commonplace.

We may all be happier as a result.

January 24, 2014

Wherein I Run Afoul Of The U.S. Secret Service

My resolve against the inner demons is tested regularly.

Some are little tests, like being put in a room with all the food and alcohol I once binged on daily to see if I can resist the temptation.

Some are bigger tests, like getting lost en route to Washington D.C a few years ago with my wife and kids in the car. Getting lost in a car used to be the stuff my anxiety attacks were made of.

Then there are the huge tests, like the time I got an unexpected grilling from two U.S. Secret Service officers — incidentally, the day after getting lost on the interstate somewhere in New Jersey.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3ckQ5LMB0ORA45X0ozu9eR]

I wrote a full account of the encounter for CSOonline.com in “What it’s like to be grilled by the Secret Service,” so I won’t repeat it all here. That column captures it from a security perspective.

Here I’ll focus on the emotional part.

First, the gist of what happened: I was taking photos from my BlackBerry of Marine One (with President Obama aboard) taking off from the White House South Lawn. I guess I lingered there for too long, because the Secret Service thought I was taking surveillance photos. Two Android smartphones later, I’m amused they found BlackBerry-quality photos threatening.

One of them was pretty tough and didn’t believe my honest protests that I was just taking pictures and walking around there because I’m a White House history buff. One officer played bad cop, grilling me as if I were just caught red-handed robbing a bank. The other guy played the reassuring role. “We’re just going to get one of these for our records,” he cooed as he snapped a picture of my unshaven face.

Apparently nobody ever showed them the picture of the Brenners visiting the West Wing three months earlier. They did note that I was texting a lot as I walked, and they wanted to know who I was texting. When I told them it was Howard Schmidt, President Obama’s then-cybersecurity advisor, it knocked them off stride. I told them I was making dinner plans with Howard, that I was buying him dinner to thank him for giving me, the wife and kids the West Wing tour.

“Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?” the meaner of the two cops asked.

As I told Howard what happened over burgers that evening, he had a good laugh.

I didn’t fault the Secret Service cops at the time. It’s not their job to know these things. It’s their job to nail terrorist activity when they see it. Could he have been a bit nicer to me, given that I was doing nothing wrong and all? Sure. But I try not to hold grudges.

It does say something about how much of a police state we’ve become in the decade-plus since 9-11, though. I also admit that if I could do it again, I’d be more belligerent. Government’s excessive reach into our lives has been laid bare since then. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been far more outraged.

Truth be told, the experience did freak me out. My back went into spasms and my hands shook for hours after. As they were in my face accusing me of running a terrorist surveillance mission, I was thinking to myself, “If these assholes haul me in, it’s really going to screw up the work I had planned for this afternoon.” I’m a typical OCD case, worrying that getting arrested will screw up the work day.

But it’s all good.

I didn’t go back to my hotel room and order $80 worth of food and a bottle of wine to comfort myself. A few years ago, a friendly encounter with Secret Service would have made me do that.

My mind wasn’t paralyzed, either. I got a lot of work done back at the hotel, even with the headache.

And hell, I got a pretty good column out of the experience.

November 30, 2013

Take Your ‘War On Christmas’ Talk And Shove It

I’ve written a lot about how my mental ticks give me the holiday blues. But let’s face it: Sometimes the mood is sparked by the hypocrisy I see in capitalism, religion and government.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/4Y5GtaTrPHM

Every year in church I hear someone talking about the so-called war on Christmas, where Godless people apparently do everything possible to tear the Christ out of Christmas, from the public schools banning Christmas decorations to people saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Then I turn on the radio or TV and see suggestions from retailers that everything would be just fine if we would all walk into Best Buy and max out our credit cards on gifts for all the special people in our lives.

I’m a devout Catholic and I agree with those who say we need to keep the “Christ” in Christmas. But to me that means celebrating the birth of Christ and what his arrival meant for humanity. It does not mean putting stupid bumper stickers on my car and sticking my nose in the air to anyone whose holiday customs don’t fit the strict teachings of the Catholic Church.

It means repaying the favor Jesus did for all of us by being as good as we can be. It means helping out family even when it’s inconvenient as hell. It means being the best parent and spouse we can be.

It also means respecting the broader array of beliefs people have and how they observe it this time of year. I think it’s ridiculous to get offended when someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” It’s not about people being Godless. It’s about people realizing that there are a lot of cultural AND religious observances this time of year: Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day. If someone wants to wish you happiness during all these holidays, including Christmas, you should pay it forward instead of getting all high and mighty about your own beliefs.

That’s how I see it anyway.

Of course, there’s the other side of the extreme: school systems and government offices banning Christmas decorations because it might offend people of other religions and cultures. Here’s a thought so simple it stings my tired brain: Why not festoon the schools and government buildings with decorations observing every December holiday? Teach the Christian kids about Hanukkah and Kwanza? Make December about embracing spirituality in all its forms?

I guess that would be too much work.

Happy Holidays indeed.

September 7, 2013

9-11-01 Jumpers: A Suicidal Mystery

I remember the photo well. It was a man falling to his death in a zen-like pose that haunted me for a long, long time. It haunted us all.

Mood music:

Yesterday, I came across an entire documentary based on that one photo. The program, like the photo, is called “The Falling Man.” Associated Press photographer Richard Drew snapped a series of pictures of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:41:15 a.m. during 9-11-01. He was one of about 200 people who jumped from the upper floors, presumably choosing to die this way because it was better than a slower death by smoke and fire.

The program includes all the haunting footage you would expect. But there was something more, something that shook me to the core:

The family of Norberto Hernandez, the man initially identified as the man in the photo, couldn’t accept that it was him, because as Christians, they believe suicide in any circumstance is a mortal sin — a ticket straight to hell.

Though the identity is still not 100 percent certain, it is now widely accepted that the falling man was Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.

The stigma around suicide is something I’ve wrestled with for nearly 15 years, since my best friend took his life. As a devout Catholic, I’m well aware of what the church says about suicide.

But I’m also a firm believer that when you’re in the grip of an out-of-control mental illness, you lose all sense of right and wrong. I think you enter a sort of dementia. Not in every case, but a lot of cases.

Then there’s the matter of people who know they are going to die and decide to go out there own way, as many 9-11 victims apparently chose to do.

Were they suicides, fitting the criteria of that mortal sin?

I would say no. I’m sure most of them didn’t wake up that morning with plans to die, especially by their own hand.

Terrorists sealed their fate, and, knowing they were going to die, made a choice on how to end it.

The episode:

We’ve heard a lot about courage that day, and there was plenty of it all around the world. Obviously, there were the firefighters, police officers and civilians who kept climbing the towers knowing they would probably die. They got other people out before thinking of themselves.

But there’s another kind of courage people often don’t think about. It’s the courage of accepting your fate and and dying with your dignity intact.

In the program, one survivor recalled looking up at the people hanging out the windows of the upper floors. She looked up, made the sign of The Cross, then lifted her arms and let go.

That’s not someone giving up and choosing suicide.

That’s someone with enough Faith to decide it’s ok to let go and let God.

March 12, 2013

The Real Problem With Bloomberg’s Soda Ban

A state judge has struck down New York City’s large-soda ban, which was set to take effect today. Judge Milton Tingling of the New York Supreme Court called Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s public health measure “arbitrary and capricious.” I agree, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

Here’s what I jotted down last year, when Bloomberg first announced the ban. It’s my perspective as a recovering binge eater…

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has generated lots of noise with his ban on uber-sized sodas. Supporters say the fight against American obesity needs to start somewhere. Opponents accuse him of leading a nanny state. Both sides are barking up the wrong tree.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:7jPHNXpJCVZQvSRf4F1WLB]

I look at this as an addict. My most destructive addiction involved binge eating on junk rich in flour and sugar. I had to eliminate both ingredients from my diet to regain control over my mental and physical health. If that battle has taught me anything, it’s that government can’t do a damn thing to save you from yourself.

Those who have no problem with a soda ban raise some interesting points, including Gawker’s Drew Magary, who wrote that people should “quit complaining” about the ban. He writes:

If you think that a ban on large sodas is somehow an affront to America freedom, I have news for you: You don’t live in a free country. You never have and you never will. That’s an illusion. You are not free to murder people in America. You are not free to stand in the middle of an intersection and block traffic like an asshole. You do not have the absolute freedom to do anything you want in America, and that’s a good thing, because living somewhere with absolute freedom means you live in fucking Deadwood.

New York city residents were already fully aware that Bloomberg was prone to implementing drastic public health measures, like the 2003 ban on smoking in bars. And yet, they re-elected him. In other words, New Yorkers were FREE to vote for the man who installed laws that they apparently considered both sane and reasonable. That’s how democracy works.

He’s right about the freedom part. People keep re-electing Bloomberg knowing full well that he has a track record on this stuff. And no, we’re not free to murder, steal and destroy without consequences. But I’m with those who say the laws we live by should not extend to what we do with our own bodies. The government has no business telling us what we can eat and drink.

But that’s beside the bigger point here: Regulating addictive substances does little to keep addicts from using. That’s true of heroin and coke users. It’s all the more true with alcohol and tobacco. If controlling the use of those things is so difficult, then controlling the use of perfectly legal and freely available junk food is fruitless.

We’ve been down this road before. I’m reminded of a book called The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kessler makes a compelling argument: Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying in “David Kessler: Fat, Salt and Sugar Alter Brain Chemistry, Make Us Eat Junk Food.”

For the true addict, regulation is a joke, especially if the drug is junk food. Knowing what’s in junk food won’t keep the addict away. I always read the labels after binging on the item in the package. And the labels have done nothing to curb the child obesity pandemic.

That’s the real problem with Bloomberg’s soda ban.

I liken it to recent efforts to punish McDonald’s for contributing to child obesity. As one McDonald’s restaurant put on its outdoor sign recently:

Saying your kids are fat because of us is like saying it’s Hooter’s fault your husband likes big tits.

McDonald’s is where I binged again and again when my compulsive overeating was at its zenith. But I’ve never blamed the fast-food chain. Buying its food — my heroin — was my choice and responsibility.

When you have young children, you have far more control over what they put in their bodies. If you’re an overeater yourself and you’re always stressed and on the run, you probably let your child eat this stuff all the time. If your child is fat as a result, that’s your fault, not McDonald’s.

We all have choices. When we make the bad calls, we have to own it.

If the bad choice is too many large sodas, Bloomberg can’t help us by banning the beverage, no matter how pure his intentions are.

January 16, 2013

When Conspiracy Theorists Become Bullies

Conspiracy theorists usually don’t bother me. Hell, I even subscribe to the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald had help assassinating JFK. But a new breed of conspiracy theorist has emerged in recent years. They make threats and act like the schoolyard bully, and they make my skin crawl.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0JhAglbb3Ca9Cp2OflPKPi]

The clowns who argued that 9/11 was an inside job are one example, though to my knowledge they never actually threatened anyone. Now there’s the Sandy Hook truther movement, a band of conspiracy theorists who believe the government secretly orchestrated the murder of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, so the public would support efforts to gut the Second Amendment. They take things in a dangerous, cruel direction.

They are the bullies in the schoolyard, the thugs hiding in the alley waiting to pounce.

One of their victims is Gene Rosen, a man who took in six little survivors of Sandy Hook the morning of the massacre. Rosen lives close enough to the school that he heard the gunshots. He found the children at the end of his driveway, and they told him they couldn’t go back to school because their teacher was dead.

He took the children into his home, gave them food, juice and toys, and called their parents. He sat with them as they described the horrible events.

He became a target of the Sandy Hook truther gang because he had been interviewed by the media. The truther thugs believe the government is paying actors to pose as eyewitnesses.

The Salon website describes how Rosen has suffered at the hands of this group:

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Gene Rosen. “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the “emotional Jewish guy,” and dozens of blog posts and videos “exposing” him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”

As I said, I generally have no problem with conspiracy theorists. Most share their beliefs without hurting anyone. And there’s no question that the US government has engaged in conspiracies and illegal activity. Did the government orchestrate this massacre? Although you never know, I think there are people out there who hate Obama so much that they’ll believe just about any theory where the president is cast as a brutal dictator.

If we ever see evidence that the truther gang is right, Americans will show the same outpouring of anger that has led to the downfall of many a government official.

But whether they’re right or wrong, conspiracy theorists have no right to threaten or harass anyone. If you think the government is behind something terrible, speak out and search for evidence. That’s your right as an American citizen.

But when you limit others’ rights in favor of your own, you become just as evil as the empire you’re fighting against.

Below: Gene Rosen (Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

gene_rosen