Not angry at all.

I am not livid. I am not so angry as to render me mute.

I have accepted that this exists, and will continue to exist.

I embrace my friends who claim religious doctrine and the leaders who espouse it cannot be conflated to draw broader conclusions about the religion as a whole.

I await the next missionary of Allah to do God’s beckoning, whilst I and my enlightened brethren quibble about cultural sensitivity and respecting the norms of other societies.

I defend the indefensible. The downtrodden who would laugh and spit in my face as I defend them. The downtrodden who believe the opposite of everything I believe. The downtrodden who we welcome into our society with open arms and who sometimes choose to return the favor in the form of a full metal jacket.

I stand for nothing. I am nothing. I forsake the very values that have liberated me. I prefer my head in the sand for in there I offend no one. And for it, I can claim moral superiority. I can wash my hands of evil and call myself the good guy.

I am the modern liberal. Hear me whimper.

Could be worse.

Could be you.

gun rights advocate

Are you Jesus?

I love the “stand for nothing” part. What have you ever stood for beyond seventh-grade honors English-caliber proclamations about things too complicated for you to actually think about?

TL;DR

moron.

When you’re writing a mocking monologue, a key point is consistency. The old “Damn my enemies for being so stupid, and curse their cunning evil!” issue. That way, even if there’s disagreement, it can only be a subjective argument, a question of he said/she said (at least absent citing of specifics by either side). For that sake, following a section on defending the indefensible etc. with a line on “I stand for nothing” doesn’t work very well. Nor does referring to whimpering when you’ve already gone with quibblers earlier. You can pick multiple problematic issues, for sure, but mocking opposing characteristics softens the enter piece.

“I stand for nothing. I am nothing.” is a good pairing, but following that up with something that grants value (even disparaged value) doesn’t work that well rhetorically. You want to double-down on that point, not usurp it for the sake of an additional argument, or change it for something that works as well but isn’t immediately countered.

Your opening sentence is fine, but your second should be qualified; if you as the writer ARE so angry as to be rendered mute, as your mocking suggests, you shouldn’t be writing. Make it instead something that requires an effort to be overcome, which allows for the exception without negating the point. “I am not so angry that it takes all of my nerve just to write”, or at least something better written along those lines, serves the dual purpose of not devaluing the point being made while also adding value to your own self.

Your second line should either by the very first in place of your actual first, or lower down the page once you’ve actually defined your subject. One mystery beginning piques the interest; two runs the risk of losing it. You want to entice people to read on by revealing a little at a time, but you’ve gone from vague to vaguer, and that isn’t a trend that supports further reading.

When you compare good and evil, you want to use equivalent terms. Washing your hands of evil and being the good guy breaks the contrast by adjusting the comparison.

I’d put a comma behind that first “friends”, just to break up that sentence a little. For that matter, the next line I’d try to make into an opposed couple, and include more detail and be a little more sardonic. When you’re talking about quibbling, you want to oppose that with decisive action, not just as a mere response. Those might be just personal preferences, though.

So, to re-write;

[QUOTE=A re-write attempt]
I am not livid. I am not so angry that I must push away the anger to even speak coherently.

I embrace my friends, who claim religious doctrine and the leaders who espouse it cannot be conflated to draw broader conclusions about the religion as a whole.

I await the next missionary of Allah to do all that is truly God’s will on Earth, striking out to do their work with immediate action wherever they will. I and my enlightened brethren will whine about cultural sensitivity and respecting the norms of other societies.

I defend the indefensible. The downtrodden who would laugh and spit in my face as I defend them. The downtrodden who believe the opposite of everything I believe. The downtrodden who we welcome into our society with open arms and who sometimes choose to return the favor in the form of a full metal jacket.

I have accepted that this exists, and will continue to exist.

I forsake the very values that have liberated me, preferring to keep my head in the sand, for in there I offend no one. And for that, I can claim moral superiority. I can wash my hands of evil and call myself good.

I stand for little. I am less.

I am the modern liberal.

Hear me whimper.
[/QUOTE]

Gosh, it seems like only yesterday that Stringbean was being all sarcastic about liberals being too angry and too quick to rush to judgment, particularly when it came to hate crimes.

Wait, it was only yesterday.

Yes. That is correct. I do exactly that.

To do otherwise is bigotry.

I’m sorry. I think the words you mean there is “conservative christian.”

What blood would you live with having on your hands?

Or on mine…?

Some day we may come to that… would that I hope we don’t.

If we ever do, I’d be proud to swap off driver / tail-gunner positions with you on a rotating basis…

What blood would you live with having on your hands?

Or on mine…?

Some day we may come to that… would that I hope we don’t.

If we ever do, I’d be proud to swap off driver / tail-gunner positions with you on a rotating basis.

(Aim for the cars with the phony aluminum badges mounted to their dash boards and the blue handicapped tags hanging from their rear view mirrors. Because REAL Cops Can’t & Don’t have those.)

And you contribute nothing to the board.

You know, that re-write would actually make a decent thread starter. Partially because it’s actually a good point, and mostly because it’s not by a huge fucking hypocrite.

More’s the pity

Good job on the re-write. It actually made sense, unlike the OP.

The only suggestion I might agree with is following “defend the indefensible” with “stand for nothing” as, if taken literally, they seem to contradict. However, this plays well into the critique of liberal hypocrisy: they claim to stand for western liberal values but defend a religious culture that runs strictly counter. What then do you truly stand for? The seeming contradiction of my statements runs a beautiful parallel with the contradiction of modern liberal thought.

The rest of your changes merely blunt the blade. Particularly your critique regarding building intrigue through ambiguity.

Kubrick could have cut swathes from the exposition. Why then should I care for the monolith?

We defend everyone having the right to their own beliefs, free of persecution or discrimination.

But hey, if you want to persecute hateful speech by Muslims, we’ll need to persecute hateful speech by “Christians” as well. Deal?

Happy Hour started early today?