(no subject)

[johnpalmer]

I’m finding a bigotry that exists in the Democratic Party, and it’s annoying as hell, and, I need to talk about it. There’s this idea, that, if a man is a bad boyfriend, it makes him a terrible person. Now, don’t get me wrong: a man who hits a woman is a bad boyfriend, and guilty of a serious crime; one who screams and is severely threatening is almost as bad. But let’s back up.

A man who deliberately rages, in a manner that makes a woman feel afraid for her physical safety, so that the man gets his way, that’s practically the same thing as using physical force to settle a matter, because it uses the threat of physical force. Robbing with a gun in your hand is a lot worse than purse snatching for a reason. That’s a good rule, but it ignores the possibility that someone will be rageful, and feel a need to express it, for a reason that isn’t actually real, and present.

Let’s take another step back. Let’s say someone is like me – they’re in a lot of pain, they don’t even know it yet, and they feel rage, and they’re expressing it, even if they’re not directly threatening someone. Is that a healthy relationship partner? No, but it’s not that someone’s fault, and, it might save a life to say “hey, some joker I met on the internet says, maybe you’re in a lot of pain, without realizing it, and maybe that’s why you have such a temper.” But right there, we might have room in our model for a Graham Platner.

Graham Platner had some stupid, boyish, ideas that he claims he got knocked out of his head. He had a skull-and-bones, yes, a Nazi symbol, but not one that screams Nazi, tattoo, and he’s had it removed since (at least) October of last year. And he was a bad boyfriend.

Now, me, I know a guy can be tagged as abusive, for being withdrawn, and suicidal. No rage at all.(Oh, and if you read this, bitch ex, “I’d rather rip my heart right out of my ribcage with my bare hands and throw it on the floor and stomp on it ‘til I die… (gasp)than spend… one more minute…”)

Ahem. And I know sometimes, people have conditions wherein they will be given to frequent rage-like episodes, where the only thing they can do is isolate, and rage to their heart’s content, which usually isn’t very much – acting out rage can be pretty stupid. What hurts, is holding all that rage in, so you don’t frighten anyone. A man who is in this situation, due to neurological pain he doesn’t understand, is in a bind.

You see, you can go to anger management class, but that assumes that you don’t have an invisible pain that just makes you frustrated, then angry. You can learn to fight that invisible pain, to try to tough it out, but, you’re going to feel, constantly, that you’re doing anger management wrong, because you just can’t stop getting angry. Some people are like me, they’ve been bullied all their lives, and know that they must consume excrement any time they show any untoward emotion. Other people can’t live like that, but, no one should live like that. They should know the root cause of their problems.

Let’s “pop the stack” now, and go back to Graham Platner, who has been up front that he got PTSD from serving in the Marines, in active combat zones. I don’t know if I have PTSD or not. I could have PTSD, worsened by pain, or, I could have PTSD mimicked by pain, you see? But I know that dealing with something, akin to PTSD, can very easily make you a bad boyfriend.

Just as people should listen to “I’m treating my neuro pain, and now, I remember to show affection, even when it hurts a lot to do so, because otherwise people start to hate me,” so too should people listen to Mr. Platner’s “I’ve treated my PTSD and alcoholism, and I’m not a bad boyfriend any longer.”

Popping the stack one more time, the bigotry in the Democratic Party is, they’ve taken warning signs that you should be wary of a man, and taken them as truths. Bluntly, the bigotry says “Graham Platner was a bad boyfriend, we must assume he’s abusive and maybe even a rapist. The one thing we know he is not, is a ‘good man.’” That last bit is male bovine excretia, bundled, and concentrated to absolute filth.

There is no demonstration of rage or other human emotion, no nonviolent argument, no amount of crazed (but nonviolent) activity that prevents a person from being a good person, and hence, a man, from being a good man. I know this, because I am a good man, even though few would believe it, if they saw me in a zoo, or as part of The John Palmer Show on TV. My wife would cheerfully agree to both statements; that I’m a good man, and that I have episodes that would make people doubt it. The key is, I’ve learned when, and why, to isolate, and how to control encounters, so I’m dealing with people, when I don’t have aphasia, interfering with my ability to think and speak. I can’t prevent myself from raging, not all of the time. But I can make sure everyone in the household knows, if I rage at the microwave, it’s because microwaves don’t get hurt feelings.

A good man is defined by what he does, and what effects he places in motion on this earth. He can’t be defined by fools and bigots who insist his appearance and demeanor prove he’s contempt-worthy. (You hear that, ex? Now you know why Weird Al got pulled out.) And what I try to put on this earth, is nourishment for good feelings and happiness. Sometimes, I suck at it, but sucking at it doesn’t define me, especially when I’m struggling to learn to do better.

I can’t say Graham Platner is a good man, but I can say that everyone who says he can’t be, that it’s impossible, because no one with PTSD and alcoholism is ever a bad romantic partner due to those two things, but only due to underlying personality  traits, is bigoted. People do change, even after hurting the fee-fees of three women they’ve dated.