Tom, I can't help what you want and I have no control over what you believe.

But that doesn't mean I have to accept any of it, any more than I have to accept UFOs, Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, Reincarnation, Bigfoot, The Mayan Calendar, Santa Claus, the Face on Mars, Chupacabra or Jesus; even if I am accused of "not having an open mind".

I'm not just stringing together words here to construct an analogy. Your politics are pure anomalism to me, and your proofs are intricate and detailed but ultimately irrelevant, like the Bible verses creationists spout reflexively to definitively disprove and discredit modern biology, geology and astronomy.

Just give it up. I refuse to accept your view of political reality, period. I not only find it mistaken, I find it distasteful. It is intellectually empty, morally barren, esthetically repugnant, and spiritually desolate. We can still be friends, just like I can be friends with Christians or Hindus, but I don't have to believe one syllable of your ridiculous ideological religion either.

I am a smart, educated, experienced, capable, and decent human being and I have complete confidence in the validity of my moral and intellectual choices. I think by now I have amply demonstrated nothing you can say is likely to intimidate me.

And keep your speculations on why I am "so afraid to accept the obvious truth" to yourself, because I might just have to tell you why I think you have to cling so desperately and pathetically to yours.