Affluent white man feels hated by me. Also psychoanalyzes me.

Regular commenter “Steve” recently dropped by on my previous post about Democrat Jim Webb’s embarrassing defense of the Confederate flag to inform me that he is deeply concerned about my emotional well-being.

One thing I have noticed in your postings, Donna, you seem to have an unlimited amount of hatred for anyone who disagrees with you. And I don’t mean just a regular sort of hatred…I mean a deep, soul searing, profane type of hatred that blinds you to much that is good in life. I feel very bad for you because in your blindness you miss the bigger picture on issues and even go to length of erasing posts with which you disagree. It allows you to pretend that opposing points of view don’t exist, I suppose, but it also demonstrates a very closed, very bitter mind.

Much as it will disgust you, I am going to pray for you. You need the prayers more than most, and who knows, it might even help you.

Oh dear. I really need to stop spray painting Steve’s driveway with foul invective and pamphleting his neighborhood defaming him as someone who has inappropriate relations with farm animals. Oh wait, I’m not doing anything like that. What I do do is respond to some of his tedious rebuttals to my and other BofA writers disdainfully and have (because my blog is mine) deleted comments of his that violate my policy (because my blog is mine) of not entertaining bad faith anti-choice drivel disguised as doe-eyed “well, gosh I’m just asking questions!” pleas for dialog. (I. Don’t. Teach. Pro-Choice. 101.) Nope. Begone with that.

But since noted Internet psychoanalyst Steve has offered his assessment of my mental state and character I thought I might return the favor, since I am the foremost global expert on privileged white dudes with persecution complexes, so here goes:

I don’t know how old Steve is but based on how he brags about his bio here (which he does frequently, grandiose much?), it is likely that he is from a generation of white men who developed a strong sense of entitlement to deferential treatment by women and people of color. This would explain how he could interpret the latter people mocking and refusing to treat his tired arguments as golden nuggets of wisdom to be “hatred” on a par with being, you know, murdered by hatred. The exaggeration and hyperbole on display here by Steve are to be expected. When you go through life expecting everyone who is not like you to tiptoe around your delicate feelings and laugh at your dumb jokes because their paycheck depends on it, this is bound to happen.

Steve also appears to struggle with chronic hypocrisy, as he seems to be obsessively devoted to tallying and examining instances of my supposedly irrational anger and hatred while often being oblivious the shocking rudeness of himself and others who share his views toward me and other BofA writers. (Credit where it is due, though, Steve has apologized on more than one occasion when I have brought this to his attention. So this is progress.)

As an explication of Steve’s hypocrisy I will first submit the comment by Barbara Espinosa to my last post about Jim Webb and his mealy-mouthed defense of the Confederate flag.

The flag flying in South Carolina is the Virginia Battle Flag so get your britches out of the bunch and quit calling it the Confederate Flag. Check out The Museum of the Confederacy
The Confederate States of America adopted three different national flag patterns between 1861 and 1865. The Provisional Confederate Congress adopted the First National pattern, also referred to as the “Stars and Bars,” on March 4, 1861. This pattern flag flew over the Capitol at Montgomery, Alabama, where the Provisional Congress met prior to the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861.http://www.americanfreedombybarbara.com/…/the-flag.. The Virginia Battle flag did not fly over the South Carolina state Capitol grounds until the great Fritz Hollings, Democrat, put it there about 50 years ago. Had nothing to do with Republicans was a Democrat. Democrats sucker Republicans in again.

Is demanding that I “get my britches out of a bunch” polite? I think not. Is Barbara’s assertion that Democrats only criticize Republicans for the flag and do so to “sucker” them at all reasonable or even remotely correct when I specifically called out a Democrat, Jim Webb, for his defense of the flag? I’m going with no on that. Does Steve care that Barbara clearly didn’t bother to grant me the basic courtesy of even reading my piece before she dropped a truncated cut-and-paste version of the same (historically inaccurate) screed that she had farted into Craig McDermott’s post on the subject? Doesn’t look like it!

Nope, I got the tone lecture and the armchair diagnosis after I gave Barbara’s comment the contemptuous response I felt it deserved while Barbara’s hostility toward me and flagrant disregard for the actual argument I made went unnoticed by Steve. (Important sidenote: Anger in women is socially acceptable to and encouraged by conservative white men when it is directed at other women and “lower status” men.)

Finally, there’s this bit:

Much as it will disgust you, I am going to pray for you. You need the prayers more than most, and who knows, it might even help you.

I have no beef with people praying for whomever they want. Have at it! However, ostentatiously announcing to someone you know to be a non-believer that you are praying for her, and that you assume her lack of religion automatically makes her both morally defective and reflexively hostile to religious people, is gauche, disrespectful, and appalling. Steve should really clean up his own psychosocial house before he attempts to redecorate mine.

Harrumph.