AN ANGRY EDITORIAL

I recently received a snail-mail correspondence in which the browbeating author disparaged my perspective on justice. The gratuitous jab riled me, but it also led me to consider the necessity of justice and its correlation to rage and patriotism. The following is the result of my rumination:

Sometimes I get angry...very angry. Accusatory remarks regarding my tenacity to make an honest wage or snide assessments aimed at my family tend to make my nostrils flare; general acts of injustice, too. Just toss me a bad deed that has gone unpunished, and I will blow my righteous stack.   

However, some say that it is foolish and wasteful of me to get so incensed. Maybe that is because they know I find vengeance a practical path when righting a wrong. On the other hand, those who tend to deprecate my wrathful motivations would also say I am at fault to express a scorching rebuttal to any derisive gesture on any platform if it should fly against a conventional (i.e. coerced) dictum. Heaven forbid I ruffle those closed-minded feathers with a hotheaded strike. (Wait! I just referenced Heaven; that, in itself, should be enough to make any snowflakes melt.)

Now, please don't misunderstand: When anger breaks from a purposeless pit and precipitates Hulkian calamity, it must be snuffed. However, anger can prompt honorable outcomes. It proved essential in halting the Axis from ruling the world. It has even paved the noble way for civil rights. Neo-manifesto-thumping dewdrops may dismiss such as superfluous sentiment, but then they don't know history, unless it's the revisionist kind. 

To me, the most reasonable examples of rage are aimed at sanctimonious buffoons who spit upon truth, justice and (whoops!) dare I say it? To mention the American way is considered taboo in many sectors these Godforsaken days, where anger's intent is often misdiagnosed as hate for the sake of it. 

But hate is worthy of the debate it triggers, in particular when it births analysis and consequential tolerance. For example, atheists and their related, anti-celebratory advocates get hot under the collar whenever they spot a Jack-o'lantern, menorah, manger or Christmas tree. I don't understand why they get so upset. I don't demand the removal of their Flying Spaghetti Monster billboards all over town. I accept the witless displays, realizing these emblems spring from some deep-seated emanation, and just because they project an outlook other than mine is fine. It all comes down to personal perspective, founded and supported by truth, justice and well, unless one is a myopic millennial, one should get the drift.  

And yet overzealous, pompous pundits continue to tier their "erudite" assessments upon those of us who march to the beat of a virtuous drum. Look away from criminality, the scoundrels decry. Pedophiles, plagiarists, disability fraudsters and charity charlatans need not be criticized (they each have their excuses, no matter how lame), and while one is at it, turn a blind eye to those egomaniacal bureaucrats who ushered nursing-home patients to their deaths. It is what it is, no more or less. Surely no one meant to commit genocide.  

In the same vexing vein, some say it matters not that To Kill a Mockingbird, Grease, Gone With the Wind, Psycho (thanks TCM for finding fault where there is none); "Baby, It's Cold Outside", Dr. Seuss, Pepe Le Pew, Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne, Gina Carano, Mike Lindell and Kevin Sorbo get ostracized. Similar denunciations toward outspoken people have occurred in China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Italy, Spain, Germany, Iran, Iraq and South Africa, and despite it all, the citizenry has "endured". And if one should get that urge to protest why one's favorite book, movie or song now sports an advisory label or has gone missing all together, prepare to get fined, fired or (when the dictatorial lawmakers can finagle it) imprisoned. (Does Nelson Mandela ring a bell?) Now, is any incensed inquiry worth that?

Hell, yes! Deny or downplay its existence, anger is a common, God-given denominator of the human condition. When it's censored, when its avocation is squashed, it only gains greater cause to burn. One would not be human without some degree of anger. Without anger's impassioned fuel, one might as well be a lowly cog in a great, corrupt machine, a pod person, a zombie, an automaton...a goddamn fool.  

Indeed, contrary to what the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do militants spout, anger must be heard from each and every perch. As such, we all hold that inalienable right to summon Peter Finch's Howard Beale and declare from our windows and at the top of our lungs, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" What's so wrong with that?

And so to those who claim it is indictable to get angry when injustice manifests (to those same selfish ignoramuses who believe they can say or do whatever they wish with impunity) take heed. What works for one side can work for the other. At the end of any ruffled line, anger is (and always should and will be) a two-way street: deserving of blanketed rumination and vigilant embrace, but never discriminatory expurgation. To let one philosophical vantage (or unprovoked insult or callous act) eradicate another's viewpoint is not only preferential, but unjust. As such, one may disagree with intense vehemence, but never restrict, smother or extract what another commends, unless one's indignation signals incontestable harm to others, though most often it will not. Redacting informed opinion is what ubiquitously harms, for it severs the symbolic spine and breaks the self-evident heart.