You Figure It Out

Wow! I go speak to some eighth-graders about chemistry, and look what happens!

Welcome, LGF and Protein Wisdom readers, and anywhere else I got a link from. In many cases we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. It won't stop you from commenting, and it won't stop me from blogging. So, here we are.

There's no possible way I can respond to all the comments in the thread below this one calling me stupid, naive, dangerous and worse, so I'm not even going to try. I'll just say these things:

- To the people who think I'm making this up: Everything I wrote was from my notes and my memory, exactly as I remembered it and wrote it down. I wrote it all immediately after I got home from the meeting. It's possible that I screwed something up, and if so that's my fault, and I apologize. But I'll personally vouch for the authenticity of everything I said, including the part about people telling me that all Muslims are out to kill me. That was said, to my face, multiple times. It was while I was in line to get in, so dude that came late, you wouldn't have heard that. Also, I was in the ~10th row. You were in the back. So maybe we heard different things from the crowd. Why would I make all those details up?

I went to the event on Tuesday night to try and gain an understanding of the people who attend such an event. I was curious about their minds and their motivations. I found out things that I didn't like, and I wrote down to the best of my recollections (using my notes) the things I saw and heard from the panel, the audience, and the people I spoke to one-on-one. If you have a problem with that, it's not my problem. Suck it up.

- To the people who think I overreacted in being shaken by this event: OK. I suck, I guess? I'm a pussy? A lot of things were said in that LGF comments thread. I'm OK with you hating me; I'm a big enough person to not take personally insults written on a notoriously racist message board.

- To the people who think I hate Jews/Christians/Muslims/you: I try not to hate anybody. If you got the impression that I hate you from something I wrote, I'm sorry.

- To the people who spend their time hating people on the internet: Why? In what will all this wasted energy result? It seems to me an awful waste of energy to be frightened of Islam, or to hate all the Jews you see. Why not just enjoy life, and try not to worry so much about everything? Maybe you can't. But I'd suggest you try it - make friends with a Muslim or a Jew or somebody. You might be surprised.

Finally, this: I think it's fairly likely that nobody on this blog will change the mind of anyone else on this blog. And that's OK. But why is it necessary to spew so much hate on both sides of the debate? Just go back to LGF or Democratic Underground or the Muslim message boards and spew your hate there to a willing audience. If you're not exchanging ideas and having open-minded debate, this is a waste of your time unless you're sorely in need of positive reinforcement.

On that note, I'm off! My girlfriend got this weekend off (her last weekend off until May), and since we live a hundred miles apart it seemed like a good time to take a little vacation. So I'll be back on Monday with some pictures.

Until then, you figure it out.