But just the other day, I did respond to it. Keep in mind that the sender was anonymous, as the Myspace account he/she sent it from didn't say the real name of the sender, and there were no pictures visible to identify them.
Here's the entire email exchange:
From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Feb 14, 2009 7:01 AM
Subject: Ann Coulter, hero?
WTF are you thinking?
...are you thinking?
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From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Mar 30, 2009 2:09 AM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
Perhaps you always start off conversations with insults, I don't know. What I do know is why I have the principles and standards I possess after 42 years of experience. After reading your page, I can tell that your life isn't like mine, and I'm not surprised that you have trouble greeting people with a zen-like lack of assumptions.
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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Mar 31, 2009 8:48 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
Damn John, I obviously hit a nerve.
You can take that as an insult, or a joke or you can take it as a question - whichever frame of reference dominates your thoughts.
I can't imagine Ann Coulter and "principles" even being in the same room. Her best attack is the ad hominem and she never backs up her arguments. She gets eaten alive every time there is a debate. Anyone who says the war in Iraq is going "swimingly" should be sent to Iraq to experience just how swimingly it is going.
You don't have to automatically think that a disagreement is an insult, do you? Old friend.
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From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Mar 31, 2009 11:00 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
Whoever you are,
You didn't hit a nerve as much as you swerved into something you weren't prepared for. There's a difference.
Judging by your silly estimation of Ann Coulter, I'd say that I hit a nerve with you, without even trying.
If indeed you are an old friend of mine, why don't you:
A) Know me better than to assume that I am a person who doesn't think about what I say/print ("WTF are you thinking?
...are you thinking?") before I say/print it? [It is insulting to me to start a conversation off with a stupid assumption about me such as what you did.]
B) Reveal yourself and try to show some social graces by starting a friendly conversation instead of the way you did?
The reason you can't imagine "Ann Coulter and "principles" being in the same room" [whatever that means] is because you take soundbites as a full disclosure of her thoughts. (you even got the famous off-handed remark about "swimmingly" wrong. If you care to know what the actual quote was, I suggest you look it up before launching into a half-baked rant. But, then again, why let the facts get in your way?)
I recommend that you actually pick up a book before you try to argue with me about her. Give it a try--it won't hurt. You may even learn something about her standards.
Having been a fan of hers since before she wrote her first book almost ten years ago, I have watched nearly every tv appearance she's ever been on. What you may consider to be an actual "debate", while she's trying to promote one of her latest books on one of the network pablum shows, doesn't qualify as an Oxford-style debate, or any kind of true debate, for that matter. Idiot "gotcha" talking heads couldn't hold a candle to her intellect, but they constantly scream and throw irrelevant arguments at her disguised as "questions". If you think that serves as genuine research into Ann's legal mind (she graduated from law school and was a legal clerk for a federal judge before becoming a writer...but you probably think that you could do the same, I'm sure), then you are obviously incapable of having an open mind.
"You don't have to automatically think that a disagreement is an insult, do you?" I wouldn't know. You haven't really given me a solid "disagreement" to go on. You just asked me if I was "thinking". Do you understand the difference?
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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 7:11 AM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
Anger is the most dangerous of all delusions. ;0)
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From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Apr 1, 2009 2:27 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
You should remember that when sending anonymous letters to old "friends".
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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 3:23 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
I thought you were my friend. Friend.
How many more buttons can I push before this get too boring? Let's see...is Ann Coulter still practicing law or did she quit because she was too easily flustered when confronted? Check out the YouTube videos, she got her lunch eaten more than once. You are guaranteed to find the one in which she claimed the war to be progressing "swimmingly." As I said before, her best attack is the logical fallacy, "ad hominem" - calling her enemies "godless" and such. To publicly say the widows of 911 victims are taking the government for a ride was unskillful at best and in reality, downright malicious.
I never attacked you and as far as disagreements, the one you said you missed is this: I'm sure Ann Coulter is a self-righteous, over-confident phoney and you think she's a hero.
Once again, I NEVER attacked you, I asked you a question. If you look back OBJECTIVELY you'll see this. Concerning the "rant," in comparison to my text, the pathetic appeal and verbosity of your disourse far exceeds mine. I wish you peace, health and happiness, old friend.
Smile man, life is too short to get pissed off over Ann Coulter. Aristotle as a hero, I can understand.
Doug Smith
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When sending this last note above, he finally revealed his identity. It was a dear old friend of mine I've known since high school, 25 years ago. Me, him, and about two other guys rode the roads a lot, partied a lot, and considered each other a tight bunch of friends. I won't bore you with every conversation we had even later through the years, but it suffices to say that we are (were?) old friends with deep ties.
Besides the above last email from "Doug", he simultaneously also sent this, separate email:
From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 3:33 PM
Subject: By the way
Hope I didn't piss you off too badly!
Playing anoymous stalker was kind of fun...you know...remember the girl from the trailer park...I'M KIDDING!!
Pretty wild huh? Why would an old friend start off a conversation the way he did [anonymously] above? It bothered me a bit, I have to admit. I hadn't talked to "Doug" in 10 years, and this seemed like not only an odd way to rekindle a conversation with someone you call an "old friend", but kind of a hateful way to do it.
I mean, we're all a little older these days, life isn't always a bowl of cherries for all of us, and it seems only thoughtful and respectful to start conversations with someone who is dear to you in a friendly way.
But, that's how I was raised. I guess not everyone sees a need to be that way with people you call friends. They can make an opening stab at you, then say, "Why are you mad? You must have a problem!"
So, now that I finally knew to whom I was speaking, I first sent back this response:
To:[witheld]
Date:
Apr 1, 2009 11:07 PMSubject:
RE: By the way
Doug!
Good to hear from you, man! I've thought of you often over the years and wondered how you were doing. I hope all is well your way. I'm glad to see that you found someone who makes you happy and centered.
The last time we spoke was...ten years ago, wasn't it? I remember that you were making frequent trips to Indian spiritual centers for growth and well-being. I always respected that about you. Plus our long friendship.
As far as piss me off, no "you" didn't. The anonymous person I was speaking to seemed to forget the old adage, "ask a smartass question, get a smartass answer", because he started off with no indication that he was kidding or serious or what by asking, "what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?"
But I see that you just wrote me another letter, explaining what you meant by the first, anonymous letter. I guess being a stalker is fun. I never tried that with people I call friends.
By the way, what girl in the trailer park? (there were so many, lol)
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And then I followed up on his previous letter with this:
To:
[witheld]
Date:Apr 1, 2009 11:18 PMSubject:
RE: Ann Coulter, hero?
"How many more buttons can I push before this get too boring?" I don't know--you started it. I hope you get bored with it soon.
"is Ann Coulter still practicing law or did she quit because she was too easily flustered when confronted?" Gosh, Doug, is that the best you can come up with? And you went to Oxford???
"Check out the YouTube videos, she got her lunch eaten more than once." That should make a peace-loving spiritualist like yourself happy then, right?
"You are guaranteed to find the one in which she claimed the war to be progressing "swimmingly."" But you said that the "swimmingly" comment was about Iraq. If I concede your point that she said "swimmingly", will you admit that you were wrong about the war to which she was referring?
I know you seem upset that someone might make a glib comment about a war in a hostile interview like Ann must go through in order to promote any one of her 7 best-selling books...but why do you get so mad? Don't you know that life is too short to get mad about Ann Coulter? Why do you watch her appearances if she makes you so angry? Are you taking any medication for this? You know, the hospitals are full of people who insist on doing things that make themselves upset. I thought you had more Zen-like peace inside yourself than that, Doug.
"As I said before, her best attack is the logical fallacy, "ad hominem" - calling her enemies "godless" and such." One would only think that her "best attack" is the ad hominem if you only watched a few of the "gotcha" interviews [do you know what that means, by the way? Have you ever been in a situation where the interviewer is trying to make you look a certain way? You seem to be stuck on stupid, here, my friend.
Those "ad hominems" are buzzwords to smoke out the brainwashed out there--those watching her on tv instead of reading. You see, "Godless" is only a title of a book--not the only arrow in her quiver. It refers to the liberal left and the way that they ridicule those of us who believe in a god creator. I guess you'd have to be one of those "readers" to know that, though. She throws them out to the delight of those fellow travelers like myself who have read her, and to the shrieks and squeals of the less tuned-in] in which she appears.
By the way, here's a link to a recent CSPAN Booknotes interview: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/lib
rary/flash_popup.php?pID=284311-2&clipStart=&clipStop=
I know, I know...you've already got your mind made up about Ann and you only prefer to watch her in settings with interviewers who hate her, so that she looks like she has her "lunch handed to her". But, I'm a friend of yours, Doug, and I prefer to answer your questions in a respectful way. I take you and your remarks to me seriously, and as a show of thoughtful respect, I try to answer you honestly and unassumingly instead of just throwing out words that I'll regret later, like: what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?
"To publicly say the widows of 911 victims are taking the government for a ride was unskillful at best and in reality, downright malicious." She didn't say "the widows of 911 victims", Doug. She said the "Jersey Girls". See, the Jersey Girls were a subset of the widows of 911 victims--in other words, not all of the widows of 911 victims. Just the 4 who were trying to use their status in order to elect John Kerry and advance the conspiracy theory that Bush caused 911.
If it even matters to you, Doug, Ann had this quote about the 911 victims widows: "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11...[but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message....They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died . . . I think it's one of the ugliest things the left has done...this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point..."
Now, speaking of authenticity, I know that you said something you believed about the war in Iraq, and how someone needs to go there before saying something about it.
Have you ever been in the military, Doug? Have you ever participated in a war? Take it from someone who wore the uniform as an infantryman paratrooper during both peacetime and Iraqi wartime: you don't understand war or those who participated in it if you insist she has to be in Iraq because she talks about Iraq, good or bad. I fought to give you the freedom to make your comments, and Ann's as well.
But you're apparently like a lot of other civilians who talk loud about it but never volunteered to do it. I've seen a LOT of them since I came back from the war. They always disappoint me, and I'm sorry that you turned out this way, too, Doug. Again, I wish you didn't have so much anger and hostility in your heart.
But I guess I'm being too "verbose" by going to this length to tell you that I still think of you as a friend, and I don't mind answering your opening question, "what the fuck are you thinking...are you thinking?"
"I never attacked you and as far as disagreements..." Doug, I never used such charged words as "attacked". I know what a real attack is. You didn't attack me. You started off the entire conversation with me with: what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking? Again, I responded honestly to you , Doug--I said that was insulting. There's a difference between an "attack" and being "insulting".
"...the one you said you missed is this: I'm sure Ann Coulter is a self-righteous, over-confident phoney and you think she's a hero." There. Isn't that a lot better? You expressed specific feelings about Ann to me. If this had been the way you started our conversation, I wouldn't have perceived it as if it was just what it was: an insulting assumption of "what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?" That doesn't sound anything like what you finally offered here, after how many anonymous letters?
"Concerning the "rant," in comparison to my text, the pathetic appeal and verbosity of your disourse far exceeds mine." I can tell that you're a real truth-seeker, Doug. All I can say is, "I'm sorry" that I have angered you. I hope my "pathetic" thoughts and heartfelt response doesn't upset all of that peace and harmony in your heart. I never knew how deeply you care about friendship.
"Aristotle as a hero, I can understand." Identifying someone as a hero is a personal thing. Because of where I've been and what I've seen in my life, I recognize heroes of many sorts. One might even see a hero for spiritual reasons. One thing I don't do is ridicule someone else for their spirituality. I still think we'll be judged one day by the way we treat/talk to others. Anonymous or not.
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