‘Cause the fucker deserves it, that’s why.
You may be wondering why I seemingly praise an individual and then refer to him as a “fucker”. I’ll ask you to "pardon my French" on this matter, for once you read – from the horse’s mouth, as it were – why this particular individual (and others of his ilk) has earned any nasty, derogatory epithet that may come to mind about him. If you know me and where I stand, what values I hold, what principles I stand by, and then can see his brazen hypocrisy, you too will think of Gilbert Gonzales as an asshole.
Allow me a disclaimer: I know plenty of people who hold clearly stated, if often irreverently so, views that greatly differ from my own. However, I do not judge them based on their ideology, but how they treat me. It is ever my hope that they, no matter how much they disagree with me, approach their relationship with me the same way. No matter their incidental hypocrisy or my own, it is generally the case that how you treat me is how I will treat you...regardless of your political or religious beliefs.
That being said, here we go.
To start off, take a look at Bruce Tinsley's Mallard Fillmore comic strip from November 24, 2007:
This 11/24 comic strip makes a very good point. I’ll let it stand on its own for the moment, and move along with the story.
If you aren’t already aware of it, now it’s your time to find out: I’m back in Arizona. I returned to Arizona on November 15, one day after taking a bus from Washington, DC to New York and deciding while on that Peter Pan lines vehicle that I’d had enough of homesickness: it was time for me to return to my home Grand Canyon State. But before I had that epiphany, I had convinced myself that I was returning to the Big Apple to stay…and so, I’d needed a place to live once again.
As I had when I returned to my native country, the United States of America - after living the experience of an immigrant to Israel - I was searching the website Craiglist for apartment rooms. I had had a mostly positive experience on Craigslist, having found my first room in New York City, and my first computer upon my return Stateside, on that site. I usually varied my inquiries to those posting ads for rooms, sometimes sharing more, sometimes sharing less, information.
One particular ad I responded to was for a place in Brooklyn. Knowing the political sensibilities of New Yorkers in many cases differed from my own, I knew that trying to search for a completely like-minded roommate or household would be a fruitless task – and considering I got along just fine with my first roommate in New York, who was a pot-addicted, NY-1 addicted, goofy and insecure left-winger from upstate New York, I was fine living with those whose views deeply clashed with my own.
This was my response to the ad, complete with the “signature” of my e-mail at the time:
***
Hi,
I'm interested in the small, converted room you have advertised on Craigslist for $400. Does that room have a bed, or no? And when is it available?
My name is Jeremy. I'm returning to New York tomorrow after being away for a few months, looking for a place ASAP. I've been back in the States for just about a year, after living abroad for a little over two years.
Thanks,
Jeremy
--
"It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions." - Charles Kettering
http://www.homelessyouthamongus.org/
Weblog: http://therealslimslavin.blogspot.com
***
If you haven’t already guessed, the poster of that ad was one Gilbert Gonzales. I didn’t know this at the time I sent my message, but it wasn’t long before I found out. I’d dealt with plenty of people like him before, but never to my knowledge had I ever been subject to a personal attack such as his. It made my blood boil.
Here’s what Gilbert Gonzales had to say in his response to my harmless, friendly inquiry:
***
On Nov 13, 2007 10:45 PM, gilbert gonzales
No, this room does not have a bed. Look, you might assume that supporters of immigrant rights and housing fairness would not want a racist, zionist supporter of oppression living with them. Fuck you and fuck off. You reply back and I will delete it immediately so don't bother.
***
Imagine the surprise this native-born American - who nevertheless had some personal experience as an immigrant abroad to another democratic country - felt upon the receipt of this message from a supporter of housing fairness and immigrant rights. I was speechless. My jaw literally dropped. I was shocked.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I had done to earn such opprobrium, and I’m still not.
I guess it’s a crime, in the eyes of Gilbert Gonzales, to support a democracy that gives a home to the freest Arab press in the Middle East and isn’t an Arab country, a country that has rescued black Ethiopians and given them a home as immigrants and which has taken in refugees from Darfur, Sudan. If Zionism is racism – as I suspect Gilbert Gonzales thinks it is – then I it’s a racism that gives a home to African Jews and African Muslims when they need it. That’s my kind of racism.
Gilbert Gonzales, whoever he is, has the open-mindedness of a Nazi. Disadvantaged immigrants to America, be they legal or even illegal, deserve better than the likes of him and his roommates. And I’m not entirely sure what housing fairness has to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, unless you consider the fate of Palestinians who, despite living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, are forced to remain in the squalor of refugee camps, prevented from building permanent housing.
Sadly, there are too many other liberals like Gilbert Gonzales out there.
One day, about a month or so ago, I was typing on my computer while sitting right in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. There were a bunch of anti-war, anti-Bush protestors nearby in pink shirts, some of whom were holding signs which said “Love your enemies”. I wanted to approach those protestors – who were screaming out at the top of their lungs and on bullhorns “Impeach Bush!” – and ask them if they loved their enemies Bush and Cheney, whom “their kind” tends to portray as evil incarnate and worthy of a firing squad. But I didn’t.
Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of the National Review, had this to say in his contribution to the book Why I Am a Reagan Conservative, a 2005 collection of writings by several different authors, edited by Michael K. Deaver, on…well, why they are what they are:
"I should also say that I was an anticommunist, and I thought that people who loved humanity should at least oppose those governments that killed humanity en masse: in China, in Cambodia, in the Soviet Union, and so on. How could lovers of humanity adorn their walls with posters of Mao and Guevara?”
Now, I’m not sure if Gilbert Gonzales and his roommates have posters of Mao Tse-Tung and Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the walls of their home, but it stands to reason that “supporters of immigrant rights and housing fairness” are people who think of themselves as lovers of humanity.
Left-wing liberals like to portray themselves as the sole torchbearers of this love of their fellow man against the evil, Zionist, racist oppressors represented by conservatives/neo-conservatives such as myself. But if it is the case that Gilbert Gonzales is a liberal, then he is like the “liberals” of Jay Nordlinger’s youth in Ann Arbor, Michigan, “…a decidedly ‘illiberal’ bunch: close minded, dogmatic, intolerant of dissent.”
I know this because, if you read my initial inquiry in response to Gilbert Gonzales’ ad, you’ll see that the only evidence of my political leanings would have to have been in my blog. How many close-minded people choose to live abroad, in a strange country or culture, after all? Gilbert Gonzales went out of his way to look up where I stand, so that he could judge me not on my merits, but on my beliefs.
Never in my life had I ever been so directly, overtly disrespected as I was on November 13, 2007, by Gilbert Gonzales, a man who advertised an available room in his apartment with this title: “$400 Room Available with a Great Household”. “Great Household” my ass.
It could go without saying that I - a "Reaganite" conservative who supports the spread of democracy in the Middle East, who feels a need to confront Islamist terrorism and those who support/finance it, who holds the Palestinians responsible for the choices they make, who knows what it is like to be an immigrant who has put himself at a disadvantage - am decidedly
But…why let it go without saying, when I can publish the evidence on my blog and let hundreds, if not thousands, of people read it for themselves? Gilbert Gonzales, allow me to say this to you now: Thank You, Fuck You and Fuck Off. What else can I say? You're a poet, Mr. Gonzales, and your own words inspired me. I had to pitch 'em right back at ya. To everyone else, much love and thanks once again for reading...whether you agree with me or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment