Own your anger

Richard Hoefer, a blogger at DemSpeak and a lone liberal out of a staunchly conservative family, finally had enough with his brothers degrading comments about his beliefs. But he didn't just get angry, he "owned his anger" in a way that I think all of us can learn from.

I stood up to the bullying and I told them they'd gone way over the line with those just absurd and biting and deadly-serious statements like... "You'd like to have another 9/11 happen here JUST TO embarrass Bush, because you all just HATE him, you just hate him for no reason and will do anything to obstruct him just for politcal gain because you so fundamentally hate THE MAN himself that you could never give him credit for anything. You'd rather our American soliders be ambushed and picked off and killed in Iraq because you just so bitterly hate Bush  and would rather him fail through tragedy, just for your political gain."

(I'm going to be posting the entire series of emails, with all identifying info removed, at DemSpeak, at DailyKos, and at Rockridge Forums).  I had a lot to say in these exchanges, but let me cut to the chase of what I said in my final round:

"If that's what you really think about me, then I want you to tell that to my face in front of your 3 kids and my Goddaughter, because I am clearly not a good influence on them."

I told him I was fed up -- from years of these assaults -- and that he needed to apologize for this time and all prior times he has impugned my integrity, assaulted my moral values while elevating his own, questioned my love for my country, claimed I want out Troops to die, claimed I do not support our troops, assaulted me as Unamerican because I'm questioned policies of our government, and belittled my character.  I told him don't ever EVER do it again. That I don't do that to him, so don't ever do it to me again.

18 hours went by.

And he apologized in an email which had a completely different tone than the assaults. It came about 6 hours before the State of the Union address.

Read the whole post. I eagerly await the posting of these emails.