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An answer
Since I have been charged (in a context that makes clear that I WOULD NOT be allowed to answer) with falsifying ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamer_marie's thoughts, I will now reproduce every word she has placed on her LJ. Then I will comment.
To me, a friend is someone with who you have interests in common, with who you enjoy talking and spending time. It's also someone who who you respect and esteem. You rejoice when good things happen to them, you lament it when bad things happen to them. You console them when they are hurt, you encourage them in their projects, you congratulate them when they succeed. You actively avoid hurting them, and when you did hurt them, you apologize and try to make amends as well as you can. You still do your best to be honest with them.
I thought you were a friend, and I tried to be as good a friend to you as possible. I tried to console you when you were down and I congratulated you when things went well for you. Once, I even defended you when nobody else would. At another time, I made a joke that offended you because you were not in a mood for joking. I apologized and said I would never do it again. Lately, you said something that, by your own admission, was "half-serious". It was offending to me, because it was a regret that, my home-country, the place where many of my relatives live were not touched by plague and fire. I said that I thought it was offensive as politely as I could and asked you if you could change it. You refused. We had a discussion after that. The next day you had written a long essay in which you twisted everything I had said in that discussion in order to accuse me of ridiculous things. I chose not to defend myself other than by defriending you. What could I have said without risking my words to be twisted again? Besides, why should I even take the trouble of defending myself against such ridiculous allegations? Anyone who took the trouble of reading my comments in your first post would know that I had never said anything of what you were accusing me, and I assume that anyone on LJ knows how to read. You were not satisfied with my lack of reaction, though, and you went on, in another post, to suggest the vilest thing that has ever been said about me.
I have endured a lot of mockery about my nationality during my childhood. Now I have to endure slander. Well, you can now proudly say that you've stooped even lower than the children I went to kindergarten and primary school with. I do not know why you accepted to befriend me and continue our friendship when the hatred you have for my home-country goes so deep that you doubt that any of its citizens can have a soul. How you can suggest that I would happily kill my parents and how you can suggest that I would seek the acquaintance of those likely to suggest me such a thing after knowing me and corresponding with me for nearly a year baffles me and revolts me.
As I have told you, I contacted LJ_abuse to report you for libel and hate speech. You may breathe freely again, because my plight was unsuccessful. I will never read your LJ again. Any comments that you make me and e-mails that you write me will go unread and be deleted as much as possible. Even if you should come to your senses and attempt to apologize for what you have said, I will refuse to read anything you say. You have betrayed me in the most horrible manner. Forgiveness is impossible. Never come near me again.
As I have never to my knowledge been near her, the last sentence sounds rather pointless. If she means "do not dare deliver any answer to this", it is both ridiculous - since she has made it impossible for me to do so - and cowardly. For everyone's information, I have NOT banned her from these pages, and she would have been able to say all of this in any of the previous threads if she were willing to deal with me. The fact is that she is not. Her pretence of addressing me is a sham; this is a stage performance aimed at her LJ readership. The last thing she wants is for me to answer; and that for good reason. She knows I could dismantle her points, because they are ill-grounded. And so she does not really argue against me at all. Even where she claims that I distorted what she said, she makes no effort whatever to point out a single instance. We are supposed to take her at her lachrymose word.
(By the same token, I already said what I thought of her sad little attempt to indict me for hate speech. "Breathe freely?" You would almost think she was threatening me with something serious.)
What stands out in this rant is the prevalence of one word: I. I, I, I. The whole four paragraphs are dominated by this dominant and exclusive pronoun to the exclusion of practically anything else. She does not bother telling anyone - let alone the person whom she is rhetorically pretending to address - how and where I am supposed to have distorted anything she said; but she distorts what I did say without shame, to make it sound that I was being hurtful to her, her, her, personally. I am referring to her nonsense about "how dare you say that I would kill my parents", when in point of fact I said nothing of the kind. I said: if your parents keep living in the Netherlands, and if Dutch laws do not go back to a human standard of value, then the day will come when you will be asked to. That is a fact, and no amount of I-I-I how-dare-you posturing can alter it. I also said that I hoped she would have enough human left in her to tell anyone who does to go jump out a window. She lies in her LJ about what I said, and denies me the opportunity to answer - a procedure that hardly suggests candour.
The most important point, however, is that this emphasis on I-I-I is absolute nonsense. I was not speaking about her at all, except for my disgusted astonishment that anyone - not her in particular, anyone - would want to defend Rita Verdonk's behaviour for any reason and on any ground. From the beginning, this was about my detestation for the Netherlands - for their contempt for human life, their money-minded collectivism, their unspeakable cowardice and collaborationism in the face of evil. And that being the case, whether Marie is hurt or not is simply beside the point; if she wants to argue, she ought to argue that her country is not like that. And that she has signally failed to do. In fact, she has not even tried; and yet she could have done so. Far from expressing a national mood, Rita Verdonk has ruined herself with her disgraceful actions; evidently there are, even in the Dutch Parliament, enough people who remember something of basic humanity. Instead of which, Marie insisted on speaking as though there was something to be said for Verdonk. There is nothing. When a person is under direct threat from violent terrorists who have already murdered her partner in the streets of your own town, you do not weaken her position in public. It is as simple as that.
No, this is all about I-I-I. I was your friend so you should not have criticized my country. I was teased on account of my nation as a child. This is exactly whatagatha_s denied that it was - moral blackmail. You must not say what you think about the Netherlands, because it would be hurtful to me. Nonsense. This is not about you-you-you at all, except to the extent that you intrude your-your-your irrelevant self-self-self, and, to that extent, make it an accomplice in what I am denouncing. This is about the tens of thousands of old and sick people, and the hundreds if not thousands of disabled babies, murdered under form of law in the Netherlands. This is about the monstrous plague of legalized mass murder that the Netherlands is trying to export. This is about its perverting and perverted effect on all human relationships. This is about the right to live until we die, not until the State decrees that we are no longer of any use. And if you intrude your I-I-I for the purpose of stopping this argument, you are only making it an accomplice in something which it did not need to be.
dreamer_marie's thoughts, I will now reproduce every word she has placed on her LJ. Then I will comment.To me, a friend is someone with who you have interests in common, with who you enjoy talking and spending time. It's also someone who who you respect and esteem. You rejoice when good things happen to them, you lament it when bad things happen to them. You console them when they are hurt, you encourage them in their projects, you congratulate them when they succeed. You actively avoid hurting them, and when you did hurt them, you apologize and try to make amends as well as you can. You still do your best to be honest with them.
I thought you were a friend, and I tried to be as good a friend to you as possible. I tried to console you when you were down and I congratulated you when things went well for you. Once, I even defended you when nobody else would. At another time, I made a joke that offended you because you were not in a mood for joking. I apologized and said I would never do it again. Lately, you said something that, by your own admission, was "half-serious". It was offending to me, because it was a regret that, my home-country, the place where many of my relatives live were not touched by plague and fire. I said that I thought it was offensive as politely as I could and asked you if you could change it. You refused. We had a discussion after that. The next day you had written a long essay in which you twisted everything I had said in that discussion in order to accuse me of ridiculous things. I chose not to defend myself other than by defriending you. What could I have said without risking my words to be twisted again? Besides, why should I even take the trouble of defending myself against such ridiculous allegations? Anyone who took the trouble of reading my comments in your first post would know that I had never said anything of what you were accusing me, and I assume that anyone on LJ knows how to read. You were not satisfied with my lack of reaction, though, and you went on, in another post, to suggest the vilest thing that has ever been said about me.
I have endured a lot of mockery about my nationality during my childhood. Now I have to endure slander. Well, you can now proudly say that you've stooped even lower than the children I went to kindergarten and primary school with. I do not know why you accepted to befriend me and continue our friendship when the hatred you have for my home-country goes so deep that you doubt that any of its citizens can have a soul. How you can suggest that I would happily kill my parents and how you can suggest that I would seek the acquaintance of those likely to suggest me such a thing after knowing me and corresponding with me for nearly a year baffles me and revolts me.
As I have told you, I contacted LJ_abuse to report you for libel and hate speech. You may breathe freely again, because my plight was unsuccessful. I will never read your LJ again. Any comments that you make me and e-mails that you write me will go unread and be deleted as much as possible. Even if you should come to your senses and attempt to apologize for what you have said, I will refuse to read anything you say. You have betrayed me in the most horrible manner. Forgiveness is impossible. Never come near me again.
As I have never to my knowledge been near her, the last sentence sounds rather pointless. If she means "do not dare deliver any answer to this", it is both ridiculous - since she has made it impossible for me to do so - and cowardly. For everyone's information, I have NOT banned her from these pages, and she would have been able to say all of this in any of the previous threads if she were willing to deal with me. The fact is that she is not. Her pretence of addressing me is a sham; this is a stage performance aimed at her LJ readership. The last thing she wants is for me to answer; and that for good reason. She knows I could dismantle her points, because they are ill-grounded. And so she does not really argue against me at all. Even where she claims that I distorted what she said, she makes no effort whatever to point out a single instance. We are supposed to take her at her lachrymose word.
(By the same token, I already said what I thought of her sad little attempt to indict me for hate speech. "Breathe freely?" You would almost think she was threatening me with something serious.)
What stands out in this rant is the prevalence of one word: I. I, I, I. The whole four paragraphs are dominated by this dominant and exclusive pronoun to the exclusion of practically anything else. She does not bother telling anyone - let alone the person whom she is rhetorically pretending to address - how and where I am supposed to have distorted anything she said; but she distorts what I did say without shame, to make it sound that I was being hurtful to her, her, her, personally. I am referring to her nonsense about "how dare you say that I would kill my parents", when in point of fact I said nothing of the kind. I said: if your parents keep living in the Netherlands, and if Dutch laws do not go back to a human standard of value, then the day will come when you will be asked to. That is a fact, and no amount of I-I-I how-dare-you posturing can alter it. I also said that I hoped she would have enough human left in her to tell anyone who does to go jump out a window. She lies in her LJ about what I said, and denies me the opportunity to answer - a procedure that hardly suggests candour.
The most important point, however, is that this emphasis on I-I-I is absolute nonsense. I was not speaking about her at all, except for my disgusted astonishment that anyone - not her in particular, anyone - would want to defend Rita Verdonk's behaviour for any reason and on any ground. From the beginning, this was about my detestation for the Netherlands - for their contempt for human life, their money-minded collectivism, their unspeakable cowardice and collaborationism in the face of evil. And that being the case, whether Marie is hurt or not is simply beside the point; if she wants to argue, she ought to argue that her country is not like that. And that she has signally failed to do. In fact, she has not even tried; and yet she could have done so. Far from expressing a national mood, Rita Verdonk has ruined herself with her disgraceful actions; evidently there are, even in the Dutch Parliament, enough people who remember something of basic humanity. Instead of which, Marie insisted on speaking as though there was something to be said for Verdonk. There is nothing. When a person is under direct threat from violent terrorists who have already murdered her partner in the streets of your own town, you do not weaken her position in public. It is as simple as that.
No, this is all about I-I-I. I was your friend so you should not have criticized my country. I was teased on account of my nation as a child. This is exactly what
agatha_s denied that it was - moral blackmail. You must not say what you think about the Netherlands, because it would be hurtful to me. Nonsense. This is not about you-you-you at all, except to the extent that you intrude your-your-your irrelevant self-self-self, and, to that extent, make it an accomplice in what I am denouncing. This is about the tens of thousands of old and sick people, and the hundreds if not thousands of disabled babies, murdered under form of law in the Netherlands. This is about the monstrous plague of legalized mass murder that the Netherlands is trying to export. This is about its perverting and perverted effect on all human relationships. This is about the right to live until we die, not until the State decrees that we are no longer of any use. And if you intrude your I-I-I for the purpose of stopping this argument, you are only making it an accomplice in something which it did not need to be.