This bothered me last night, but it was late and I had SDAI to contend with, so...

Let's follow this portion of the thread down memory lane, shall we?

You stated that I was intolerant of the views of others.

I challenged you to walk in my shoes for half an hour, since the only evidence you have is that I have the nerve to disagree with your God-given right to drive whatever you want wherever you want.

You assumed that I consider tolerance onerous (a reflection of your attitude, perhaps?). I explained why that is not the case. You began to attack my career, about which you apparently know very little. Many people are ignorant about what librarians are and what they do. So I forgive you your ignorance, but not your meanness. I know, you don't care. Meanness is OK as long as it's directed at a liberal. Are you getting back at me for all the people who insulted you while you were in the military? By the way, if you will think about my past posts, you will notice that I have never insulted soldiers for their career choices, even though I may sometimes disagree with the deployments our policymakers choose for them.

And then you brought up your wife. Huh??

First of all, you can no more compare a nurse to a librarian than you can compare a polar bear to a panther. I wouldn't want another librarian to look after me while I was gravely ill, but I sure wouldn't want a nurse searching for information to help me start my small business. You assume that this is so easy, anyone can do it. This is, of course, why the profession is thousands of years old: because it’s not needed.

Second, your wife was not part of this conversation. She's not fair game for me to attack, as she has never said a single word to me, so bringing her up deflects pressure from you. She becomes a shield, a distraction. Besides, I admire her. Did you hope to lure me into attacking an innocent third party so I would look small?

Third, you used her record of heroic effort to attempt to degrade me personally by implying that her work was more "worthy" of respect than mine. (Note the “’library science’” punctuation, along with your "real world" remark in another portion of the thread.) Her achievement is not yours, and though you have every right to be proud of her, you have no right to attempt to use her history as a club to beat me with, especially when it is so far beyond the point.

Fourth -- and this is only an amusing side note for me -- it struck me as odd that you would seek to parry one “traditional” female occupation with another. Is it that you think that you can only fight one girl with another? The king can only move one space at a time, so often his queen defends him.

If this had been a real debate, with real rules, your off-point distractive tactic, along with the ad hominem attacks, would have cost you the match. But as I said elsewhere, the rules here are very indistinct.

Regards--
Mary Anne