"I don't want anybody to feel like I feel, but I want everybody to know why I feel it"

Mike Dunford of the Questionable Authority has written a post you should read, and then print out and mail, or copy and email, to your Congressfolk.

I've been trying to write this post for four hours and six beers and I've spent most of that time staring blankly past the screen. I've written things in my mind and they've never made it to my fingers. I've started to write with my fingers and pounded them against the keys until they burned and the keyboard keys jammed and I'm still left without the words I need.

And I don't like that.

I like words. I like to use words. Words are the tools that can be used to shape thoughts, to show logic, to highlight rationality. But that tool isn't working for me now. There is no logic to what I'm feeling. I can't pin down my emotions in clean, logical sentences. I can't capture these emotions and display them in all their glory for all to see.

And I do like that, because I'm not sure that I want them there for all to see.

I'm angry. I feel frustrated, helpless, and powerless and I don't like that, and that's making me angrier and I don't like that. I have never been this angry before, and I sure as hell hope I never get this angry again. I've learned, for the first time, what hate really feels like. It doesn't feel good. And I still don't have the words that I need - so very badly - right now.

And I don't want anybody to feel like I feel, but I want everybody to know why I feel it.

I'm angry and frustrated and helpless and powerless because there are five families that will very soon see serious men in green uniforms knocking at their door with a message of deep regrets. There are 13000 families who have just gotten the message that one combat zone deployment isn't enough for today's weekend warrior. There are 15000 families that will soon get the message that one year isn't a long enough deployment, even if it is the second or third or fourth time they've gone out. All of this is going on today, and today the man who is responsible for every one of these troops and every one of these families wisecracked his way through a speech and threatened these families with more harm if he doesn't get his way.

And I really don't like that, because "these families" includes my family.

...

I'm sitting here trying to find the words I need to describe these emotions that I feel because I know how I feel. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. And I know that the man - the person - the allegedly human being - responsible doesn't have a single damn clue about what he's doing to real people.

And I don't think he'd care if he did.

He's an active voice decider in the first person, but things only go wrong for him in the third person passive. He's the one who's right and anyone who disagrees is wrong, and he knows that's the way it really is way deep down in his twisted little truthy gut. He's right, the rest of us are wrong, so it's fine to sneer at opponents and blame them for the things that he's doing now.

Go on over and read the whole post.