Tgirsch, frequent poster over at Say Uncle's place has lost a friend of his to cancer. What makes this story even more sad is that his friend was a commenter at his site, Lean Left.
From the day he first showed up here, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with frequent commenter Ted. I have no idea how he found this blog, but it seemed like he came here with the sole purpose of disagreeing with pretty much everything I wrote (or so it seemed to me). In the beginning, we would get into huge, lengthy debates about all kinds of stuff, where we seemed to do nothing but disagree. It was so stark that I initially wrongly described him as conservative. (He was genuinely offended when I did this, as I recall.) ... In time, I learned that he and I have a whole lot more in common than we originally thought — something which, I think, tends to occur frequently when you have rational debates with people and try to keep emotion out of it. And because of this, Ted has acted as a moderating influence, both on me, and on the blog. In short, he has kept me honest, and that’s a good thing. ... As I mentioned above, I got to really like Ted — the “hate” part has long since vanished. It continues to amaze me that we can form bonds over the internet, even with people we’ve never met. I’ve never seen Ted face-to-face, nor have I ever even heard his voice. I’ve never seen a picture, so I don’t even have any idea what he looks like. Yet despite all of this, I consider him a friend.
From the day he first showed up here, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with frequent commenter Ted. I have no idea how he found this blog, but it seemed like he came here with the sole purpose of disagreeing with pretty much everything I wrote (or so it seemed to me). In the beginning, we would get into huge, lengthy debates about all kinds of stuff, where we seemed to do nothing but disagree. It was so stark that I initially wrongly described him as conservative. (He was genuinely offended when I did this, as I recall.)
...
In time, I learned that he and I have a whole lot more in common than we originally thought — something which, I think, tends to occur frequently when you have rational debates with people and try to keep emotion out of it. And because of this, Ted has acted as a moderating influence, both on me, and on the blog. In short, he has kept me honest, and that’s a good thing.
As I mentioned above, I got to really like Ted — the “hate” part has long since vanished. It continues to amaze me that we can form bonds over the internet, even with people we’ve never met. I’ve never seen Ted face-to-face, nor have I ever even heard his voice. I’ve never seen a picture, so I don’t even have any idea what he looks like. Yet despite all of this, I consider him a friend.
Ted passed away recently, and Tgirsch has lost someone he called a friend. Even through their political differences (and I have mine with Tgirsch as well, but he has always been courteous and mild mannered), they were able to bond a friendship.
Today, I almost lost a friend due to politics and my sometimes short temper. One of my closest friends who I've known for over 10 years has really taken a liking to Obama. He is like me and can't stand McCain, but for different reasons. He absolutely loathes Palin with every fiber of his being. But he honestly believes that Obama is both qualified for the office and feels that what he'll do when he's in the White House will be beneficial to the country.
I almost lost my temper in an email exchange and said some things I would have regretted. I would have thrown away 10 years of friendship over something stupid.
While I think he's mistaken, I know he thinks the same thing about me. He's convinced that we'll hop right into a war with Iran after which McCain will croak leaving what he considers a "stupid beauty queen wannabe" in charge. I've followed Palin a bit longer than this election season and I've simply not gotten that impression of her. Then again, I've paid more attention to her record of governing than interviews on the TV so I've come away with a different viewpoint.
But I have to concede that my friend has come to the conclusions he has with the data he's received and that he's not just blindly following the Messiah. I can't fault him for that. I shouldn't. Otherwise I could lose a friend which does nobody any good.
We're humans. We're all going to have opinions on how things should be and we're not going to agree, even between the best of friends. Personally, I'm depressed I have to root for McShitSandwich primarily because he's not Obama. I shouldn't let that get in the way of who I call a friend.
Tgirsch has my deepest condolences.