I posted this Note in response to some seriously inane conversation as a result of one of the many items I put up on my FB wall. It’s stunning how much better I can think when I have a night’s sleep.

Y’all should probably be relieved that I’ve moved the majority of my political posts there. But this applies to both that space and this one and it bears repeating, so here it is:

Last night I had a better night’s sleep than I have in a while, thanks to proper meds (albuterol and now inhaled steroids to nuke the starting bronchitis) from a thoughtful doctor who knows when to listen to the patient. It kills me that there are people I know who don’t have access to this sort of medicine or advice. (The nurse made me come in because *she* didn’t like the way I sounded.)

After a decent night’s sleep, I realized I buried this comment at the bottom of a post, and another that is cogent as well. So I’m reposting it here, as a warning and for encouragement of clear discourse. If you want to take issue with me regarding the things I post you’d better read this because I mean it.

Let’s be clear here. The Republican Platform is not the isolated input of a few noisy jerks in an otherwise intelligent and reasonable organization. This is the full percolation of all the hateful rhetoric in the last twenty years, distilled down for your voting pleasure. Read that again: 20 years of this crap, since Bill Clinton took the White House after beating George H.W. Bush out of a second term.

If you opt to label yourself as a Republican, tea party or otherwise, this is what you are signing on to as representation of YOUR views. If you don’t like that, take it up with YOUR party. I am reporting what these people who claim to be citizens of MY country say should be MY views, rights and responsibilities.

I’m proud to be a liberal Democrat. I have been since I was at least eight years old. I recall the Vietnam war, the riots of the ’60s that helped inspire the founding of my high school, the assassinations of MLK, Jr., RFK, Malcolm X and Pope John Paul I.

I am literate, educated and I vote. I have taken classes in human sexuality, human pregnancy and fetal development, and I have carried two children of my own. I have had two c-sections (one of which likely saved my life and my baby’s), and I have had a tubal ligation to prevent further pregnancies. I support the right to choose and I am not dependent on or beholden to anyone else’s religious views. I have already started to educate my daughters on how to stay away from drugs, cigarettes and pregnancy. And when the time is right, I will vaccinate my daughters so that they can be safe from preventable cancer in the same way that they are (theoretically) immune to tetanus, measles and hepatitis.

I have friends of the same sex who are married in some states but not in others. Some of them are parents, and awesome ones at that. Some of them are celebrating anniversaries of over 20 years.

I know and am (or have been) friends with close to 20 transgendered individuals, some of whom have undergone surgery and who are happier for the ability to identify themselves as they are and not as others see them.

I am also a survivor of inappropriate touching, non-consensual sex, and separation after marriage.

Do not presume to know what my motivations are in posting the things I do. Read the articles, pictures, and my comments. Explore the truth for yourself.

I’ll only say this once: Rant on my wall at your own risk. This is MY space. If you refuse to be educated, opt for accusations rather than open discussion and reduce your arguments to name-calling, I will remove you from my friends list without another warning, no matter how long I may have known you as a friend.

We have a long way to go between now and November 6, and I don’t propose to stop posting this educational material until the poisonous rhetoric of the extreme Right goes away or posting becomes illegal thanks to some hidden paragraph in an internet security bill or hidden agenda of the site hosting my account.

If you think I mean you, you may be right.