There has been a raging flamewar going on in the blogswampia, people blogando about this person, blogando about that person. Suddenly, I started thinking to myself, XP you write pretty damn well, why aren’t the Big Boy Blaggerz giving you some respect, ya know some kind of link love? I thought some more and I thought about other great bloggers who also should get some respect. Should we worry about an opposition we know nothing about? What could they do to us? At what point did they start to hate us. Was it my ambitions and the possibility of my success that threatened my unseen enemy? Or could it be that my outspoken opinions on matters that upset them to the point they seek to silence me by surprising methods? Were my enemies just jealous of some perceived advantage I had? I had no idea, as my unseen enemy was yet to show their hand.

Or perhaps they had already shown their hand and started manipulating my life without my knowledge. The last interview I had was tough, too tough for the role advertised. Did any of my potential employer do a Google search and find something about me that was written by my enemy. Did they ask easier questions to the other person who got the job. Was the hand of my enemy in this behavior? Where I was struggling financially and stuck in a repetitive routine. It could be possible, with no job and no money that would mean no internet. OMG, if I am silence, they would win. Suddenly I could see the hand of my enemy in all things. If I thought about every hardship I faced, it could be traced to the hand of my enemy. Everything, every event of my life could be affected by this evil phantom.

Yet how could one person do so much? It suddenly occurs to me that I had many enemies and many places all planning together to break me. They were seeking to destroy me because I could do no wrong, I was the better writer, I always correct so, the truth is, they are the evil ones, the vicious ones, the ones who wanted to lead people astray, and take away my readers. I know they are evil because they are plotting against me. I must fight fire with fire, I must start planning my strategy against them, to change the tables on them and seek their destruction first. I must find people who seem to threaten me and go on the attack against them, take them off my blogroll, out them, call them names, make new rules - something. I must humiliate them, devastate them anything to crush them because there really is one answer to this kind of enemy and that is to destroy them at all cost, all of them. My enemies may look innocent but I could see through their act and I would bring them down before they bring me down. I would move preemptively to strike at anyone who was not with me. If they were not with me then they were against. If no one would help me then I must destroy them all.

Ahhh sound familiar? It is scary how we can get lost in our emotions. The term “emotionalism” is often used to describe a person who has “a tendency to rely on or place too much value on emotion” and an “emotionalist” is a person whose conduct is ruled by emotion as opposed to reason. Nevertheless, there comes a time when we required to think before we act. However, for some, thinking is harder than feeling because it requires managing impulsive emotions and strong desires. Perceptions alone can lead to prejudice in the true sense; the pre-judging a matter before hearing the evidence.

At times, a person’s passion can suddenly become more important than a rational debate over its merits. The matter of a person’s comment is no longer about the remarks but about whom they have upset. When people start throwing out words like illegal, Mexican, Reconquistador, wetback, border jumpers, mad, dangerous, liberal or reactionary, they are not using these terms to make you think. Rather they are aimed to do anything to prevent you from being able to think. Words of raw passion are used to anger the heart in order to dull the view. Words of fear are aimed to create panic. Panic is encouraged to the point of hatred. Hate is the perfect way to fester divisions. Words of fear are sought to institute panic. Panic is encouraged to the point of hatred. Hate is the perfect way to fester divisions.

One thing anti-immigrant foes are good at doing is creating wedge issues, which is meant to divide people rather than unite them. Pundits like Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, John Gibson, Michelle Malkin, and Jim Gilchrist are constantly appealing to the heart because they know a lynch mob could not exist if people actually stopped to think what they were doing. They are only left with one option to win people over, by striking fear into the hearts of their audience. The primary reason, they feel that the average person is stupid and need to be told what to do. That is why they are creating wedge issues to continue building their congregation with obedient and mindless fools as a means to their unscrupulous ends. As a result, we have the creation of organizations like the Minuteman Project and the rise of white supremacy groups. That run with panic, shrill how the US is being taken over. All of this because nobody took to the time to examine what the racist pundits are talking about.

It is through thinking can we see the manipulations and emotional blackmails that have been done to us. The fact is, we live in an era where we are flooded with stimulus and information overload. Sometimes we hear and see things that touch the hearts more than the minds. Like the immigration debate, the sentiment in the current flamewar that has engulfed the left blogosphere is running high. In such times, it is easy to become a prisoner to your own emotional reaction. You might act in a manner that is outside your normal behavior and do things that you never dream of doing. Passions can steer a nation to be generous in times of natural disaster but they can also destroy a country through civil discourse. And it is only through critical thinking can we choose between the two.

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