Dialogue.

Ahh. Typically American. But you see I did not ASK about what MIGHT happen. *I* was asking about what is TOTALLY IMPERATIVE at THIS VERY MOMENT. Now you speak to me of women getting raped, and the necessity of self defense. But you failed to provide one ostensibly crucial warrant. I mean: Can you PROVE to me that rape is bad? Now, now. No need to get violent yet. A simple warrant will do. Now you seem to EXPECT that I know the answer to this question. That’s a bit TOTALITARIAN, is it not? To EXPECT such an answer. Seems contrary to your motto. Allow me if you will to venture again. It was YOU that suggested that women need guns to protect their selves. But I of course filled in the details with my own imagination. You simply said: But what about women who get raped? Well: what ABOUT them? Or is it possible that you wanted to PRESERVE this fine tradition? After all: Surely many of their ASSAILANTS TOO were armed. Now I have done the work FOR you. Now haven’t I? And you turn to me like I have tricked you. You DEMAND that I be clearer next time with my claims. But I only thought to ask questions. I was curious about you. I wanted to give you that space to set the standards. Turns out you had NO standards to set. My views were secondary. But now I must supplement them for your own. Nature abhors a vacuum, you know.

Allow me to refresh. You SEEM to have suggested, by threat of violence, that ANY man should know the answer to this question that I asked OF YOU. And yet it seems you did not even think to ask the question first! Were the last men to have beaten you not kind enough to TELL you the answer, that you might not be beaten again for asking it? How is it that YOU cannot prove EITHER why rape is bad? Now come on. Must *I* educate YOU? I have all ready hinted at the answer twice before. But I wanted to get to know you before I did the work for you. Clarity IS the enemy of Depth, now isn’t it, and I would INSULT your depth by my Being-Too-Clear!

Here is the answer: That rape is a form of VIOLENCE. Now that we have established VIOLENCE, as the problem, go ahead. If you will pardon my use of the imperative. EXPLAIN to me how guns are necessary. SHOW me how you might sit next to your WIFE and not feel AWKWARD at the fact that you have a gun at your other side. Does that not HAUNT you? Does it not BOTHER you? Now, now. I did not EXPECT you to know the answer. Say what you will of my being manipulative. But at least I am consistent; I my self don’t have Totalitarian Expectations. Is it not YOU who seeks to manipulate me by leveling with me, that you might escape responsibility in the mere moments it takes for me to justify my self?

But was the burden not upon YOU? After all: It was to YOU that the thought of sexual violence occurred. No surprises, since you seem to value violence as a human right. But surely it can’t be that YOU are the apologist. Only for the violence that you your self deem justified. But my good man! What about the women who do not WANT to carry a gun! Bless their souls. And you would RATHER that they be raped by any MISCREANT who thinks to bear one? After all: Are they not usually found out LATER to have been “mentally unstable”? Are many of them not so DIAGNOSED only a posteriori?

The burden was of course upon you to answer my question. And you tried to dispossess your self of THAT responsibility as well, reversing the burden upon me as you have done [by] Leveling more recently. Yes, even as you have done by labeling me the manipulator. But is it not IRONIC that since the burden of the question rested upon YOU to begin with, you could only parrot it back to me with the EXPECTATION that *I* know it? Why would you EXPECT that I know the answer to an innocent question? Were you biased against me to begin with? How DARE you call me manipulative then! That is surely WORSE than the fact that I did not EXPECT you to know the question either. I mean, sure: May be I have confessed that the question was not so much innocent as interrogatory, more Rhetorical than Socratic. But what does it say that you JUMPED to that same conclusion without EVIDENCE?

Or was my evidence merely a matter of tone, of intentionality? Would you not EASILY have exposed it by simply answering? Would that not at LEAST have lay my planned advocacy to waste? Or were you afraid that it would not? You only compel me to sound manipulative for you your self are. How else am I to answer to the accusation that I too had had Totalitarian Expectations? Either I did, or my question was rhetorical, for I did not expect you to know the answer. It is not nice to try to corner people. Nor is it accurate. For it was YOUR last argument that would have led me to believe one of two things: That either you knew or you were bluffing. So I ask one more time: Is it not IRONIC that since the burden of the question rested upon YOU to begin with, for it was YOU who mentioned rape to start with, that you expected ME to know the answer to a question you did not ostensibly expect? After all: if you expected the QUESTION, was it not you who lay the trap? How could you claim that I had tricked you if the question its self was expected?

Now, now. But no need to get violent. And no need to level. We heard every thing.

Dm.A.A.