War on God? : Babbling Builders of Yore

(Genesis 11:1 - 9)

א ויהי כל-הארץ, שפה אחת, ודברים, אחדים

ב ויהי, בנוסעם מקדם; וימצאו בקעה בארץ שנער, ויישבו שם

ג ויאמרו איש אל-ריעהו, הבה נלבנה לבינים, ונשרפה, לשריפה; ותהי להם הלבינה, לאבן, והחמר, היה להם לחומר.
ד ויאמרו הבה נבנה-לנו עיר, ומגדל וראשו בשמיים, ונעשה-לנו, שם: פן-נפוץ, על-פני כל-הארץ

ה ויירד יהוה, לראות את-העיר ואת-המגדל, אשר בנו, בני האדם

ו ויאמר יהוה, הן עם אחד ושפה אחת לכולם, וזה, החילם לעשות; ועתה לא-ייבצר מהם, כול אשר יזמו לעשות

ז הבה, נרדה, ונבלה שם, שפתם--אשר לא ישמעו, איש שפת ריעהו

ח ויפץ יהוה אותם משם, על-פני כל-הארץ; ויחדלו, לבנות העיר

ט על-כן קרא שמה, בבל, כי-שם בלל יהוה, שפת כל-הארץ; ומשם הפיצם יהוה, על-פני כל-הארץ

Why is this story even necessary? If we removed it from the Torah, we might not miss it at all. In fact, it seems, much like the non-ending genealogies of hard to pronounce names, and wholly redundant. Yet, for the purpose of which the story becomes necessary, it fits right in with the aforementioned family trees. The tale of the Tower is not needed, in and of itself, but exists to fill in a ‘blank’. While reading thus far in the Torah, one wonders how multiple languages, human migration, and demographic diversity came to be. In the mind of the ordinary person, families stay close to families and, in those days, people stayed near the clan and rarely ventured very far from home. To anyone alive then, the idea of migrating away from your people was considered insane, so the Torah has to tell us that God 'forced' people to do the unthinkable and spread out far and wide across the globe. As we see with Cain, having to leave the family was a terrible curse!

Verse 11:1 tells us what humanity looked like immediately prior to the Tower and, at the same time, leads us to some more interesting questions. So far, despite the racial differences we are told existed between Noah’s children, they seemed to be, at least we imagine them to be, of one huge and very cooperative extended family, while speaking one common language among each other. There is no reason to assume otherwise and it makes perfect sense, should the Torah be correct, that one common means of verbal communication among these cousins was the norm. That everyone shares a bloodline, lives within the same community, and speaks a common language should come as no surprise. After all, they were grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the same man.

However, if we take allow ourselves a moment of respite from our Torah reading to take a quick glance at the world around us, we see something very confusing. Whether in ancient or modern times the various traders, merchants, mercenaries, ministers, refugees, and vacationers from distant lands, none of whom spoke the local language, began arriving within the boundaries of the fledgling human family. The clever child would immediately ask the obvious question, and the Torah anticipates that curiosity with the Tower story. It became necessary to explain to children (and I suppose some adults, too) how such varied linguistic diversity came to be if, in fact, the Torah, up to that juncture immediately prior to the Tower, was even remotely accurate. Thus, the telling of the tale of the Tower of Babel was needed to answer the obvious and keep the flow of the Torah narrative running smoothly.

Why did they build the Tower anyhow? The Torah says that the people were worried that they would become too spread out and wanted to establish the Tower as a beacon which people could see for many miles around, much like a lighthouse does for ships nearing the shoreline. There is nothing here to substantiate the Rabbis claims that these people were going to 'make war on God' and eventually climb the Tower to attack Heaven. I realize the Rabbis have to concoct that nonsense to try and make sense of the story, which is also nonsense, but they just make the whole problem even worse. From the plain Torah account, there appears nothing amiss or sinful in their motives for building a metropolis or a skyscraper within it. One has to wonder how, in light of the Tower story, this God allowed any cities to ever be established.

The Rabbis reasons for assuming a 'war on heaven' are two-fold. One, it provides a reason why God would be angry over this and two, it permits all kinds of other assumptions clearly not stated in Torah. We will deal here with only the first assertion. The obvious question becomes as to how exactly one wages war on an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being. It's not as if one could launch a direct assault on something which is everywhere nor could one ever hope to hold the high ground or use the element of surprise to any particular advantage. Besides, what weapons would they have been using? If God is vulnerable to spears and swords, whereas God being equally present everywhere one turns, He would have to fear the blade at sea level just as He might at 5000 km above it!

Why build the Tower in the valley and not on a mountain top? If their purpose was, as the Rabbis suggested, to ‘wage war with God’, then wouldn’t it make more sense in any case to use existing geography to their tactical and practical advantage? I think it's pretty clear that the Rabbis were talking out of their asses, merely trying to justify the Tower story through the smoke and mirrors of allegory or parable, rather than dissecting the Torah account to root out the apparent flaws.

Rabbis say that humanity's sin here was in developing too much self-reliance and not maintaining enough faith in God. The 'war on God' was not a literal war in the physical sense, but a psychological war whose indirect effect would be to lessen one's dependency on God. The Rabbis assert that the people, by establishing themselves as a civilization, were rejecting faith. Apparently, only nomads and farmers are steadfast in faith and belief and God was worried that living in anything other than tents that reek of dried camel dung and human urine would incite humanity to rebel against Him. If real faith can only exist in nomadic agrarian societies, then modern Judaism is utterly screwed. In either case, the Tower tale makes no sense at all.

Who is God asking to help confuse languages? When He decides that "We" should be doing something about the Tower, who is asking? This is a similar problem to the verse in genesis where God says "Let US make man". So who is us? Now you may suggest that 'us' here is perhaps angels, but why doesn't it just say 'angels' and not leave us guessing? I have no answer for this one, and it appears to be yet another instance where polytheism is strongly implied in the Torah. This problem, however, is not integral to our story.

What is God's problem with peaceful human cooperation? It seemed that humanity was doing quite well; without wars or other societal problems that, under the best of circumstances, tend to fragment a society. This is, in part, how you know the story to be false. I cannot, myself, imagine all of humanity, no matter how few in number, working toward one purpose so efficiently as to scare the bejeezus out of the Almighty. One has to ask what exactly it was about their peaceful and focused mutual effort that ticked off the Lord. Not only that, but you’d think that all this happy cooperation would be a really good thing and not pose a threat to God. After all, just a few generations back, God flooded the planet and damn near wiped out humanity for NOT behaving peaceably with each other! So now, they are conducting themselves quite nicely and God gets pissed off at that, too! No wonder people stop believing in God; he is just plain impossible to please!

How exactly did God mess up their communication and to what extent? Rashi tells us that if one worker would ask for a brick the other would hand him a hammer and this thwarted any effort to continue building the tower. Yet, to have total societal confusion spring from this incident, it would require much more than just the mere bewilderment of artisans and laborers. For God's plan here to unfold as desired, both husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, etc. would also have to become linguistically estranged from one another. The result would be that no one, even those on the most intimate of terms, would be able to communicate! Total chaos, and one well beyond what the Torah suggests here, would have almost instantaneously ensued. Yet, somehow, the people did not disperse as individuals in random chaos, but remained, even while migrating away from Shinar, in their basic family units.

This problem is further accentuated by the fact that, as the Torah claims, they were of "few words", implying a language very much based upon symbols, signs, and other forms of non-verbal communication. If we are to believe what Rashi tells us, then even if their spoken language went awry, the basics of their communicative abilities still remained. This applies even more so to the artisans and laborers whose skills, once highly developed, required no direction at all, as they were able to continue their work without need for spoken language. If a mason needed a brick he could simply point with his finger to the brick and the laborer would know what to do. In any case, whatever the Torah (or Rashi) claims to have happened either would have had a much greater or significantly lesser effect than the Tower story seems to imply and does not answer any of the obvious questions.

The list goes on, but I have no more time at the present to donate to this subject. Comments and ideas are always welcome.

Kol Tuv

Burying the Goldfish : Funny!

Conversation w/a Capitalist Doofus

There is nothing more entertaining that a Republican, corporate-brainwashed windbag trying to discuss economics and sociology. The scary part is that this person is convinced that he or she is right. His comments are in parentheses.

(Re: The overtaxed and over worked employers are entitled to make a profit.)

Correct, but at what price to everyone else involved? How much more of worker’s rights, safety codes, and consumer protections are you willing to do without in order for the owners and shareholders to make even more return than they are already? Besides, if a company cannot remain competitive in the marketplace simply by producing and selling their product or service, then perhaps that is the fault of the people running the company and they should be out of business altogether. Financial engineering does not a healthy economy produce.

Bottom line? Capitalists are too busy defending the people who don’t need any help while preaching that no one should be helped anyhow. Does that make any sense at all?

(Re: In spite of how hard you try, we are not a socialist country yet.)

I’m working on it though, and there are millions of working class and educated Americans who don’t buy the corporate bullshit anymore either. As American wages and buying power decreases, more average folks are seeing the light. Unfortunately, those at the top continue to manipulate the news and the numbers to show otherwise. In spite of all your bragging about ‘Capitalism ending the Cold War’ and ‘Communism dead and gone’, the right wing still trots it out as the great econo-political bogeyman when needed.

(Re: The uneducated, entry level worker does not deserve the same wage as the business owner, or upper level manager.)

No one ever suggested that an entry level worker should receive the same compensation. You are flaunting your ignorance of a subject you should avoid. The ‘entry level worker’ excuse is overplayed. They are earning money for the company and providing needed labor. To degrade the entry-level position as if it is some sort of hazing ritual is disrespectful to your fellow American who very often now, has to take that job because his former corporate masters relocated his job to Indonesia.

(Re: The "free" healthcare, the "free" bridge card, housing assistance, SSI, & SSA checks....Where does that come from?)

Same place corporate welfare comes from. Same place the military comes from. Same place from which the roads get paved and the school are built. Same place from where every federal employee and politician gets free health care. Same place that pays for all the tax breaks and subsidies given to lumber companies, coal companies, etc.

You are not opposed to welfare. You merely demand that it to go to those to don’t actually need it.

(Re: There should be no free rides.)

That is a very heartless thing to say. You would begrudge a hungry family a meal or shelter because they didn’t ‘work’ for it. Why does everything with you Republicans have to come with ‘work’. All you want us to do is work, work, work, work. If you are mentally ill, that’s too bad. The rest of us normal people would like more vacation and don’t mind one bit if our money helps another human being. All human beings are deserving of compassion. Even you.

In the Republican mind, which follows the old Calvinist ideal of will-breaking and hard labor, nothing is bestowed without maximum effort or endeavor. It’s a bullshit cultist philosophy that should have died out with the Pilgrims, but still survive in the psyches of Capitalists world over. As long as you slave for their profit, you remain worthy of sustenance, otherwise you are a drag on the system and to be caste out and forgotten.

(Re: The generation, after generation, of soulless, beat down, individuals. Who have no drive, no motivation, are living proof that Welfare does not work.)

People are alive, fed, and sheltered? Then it’s working! Before FDR’s New Deal we had people starving in the streets in this country, most of them elderly. I don’t know what you think social programs are supposed to accomplish, but their goal is maintain the life and welfare of the citizens. You also need an honest history lesson and not rely on the white-washed, brainwashed bullshit you heard in elementary school and on talk radio.

The New Deal saved lives. People like you opposed it then and still do today.

(Re: Take out the emotions, and insert the facts and figures, the math doesn't work)

Spoken like a true bean-counter. Amazing how you can detach yourself so easily from human suffering so to be able to earn .08% more on one of your many investments. Facts and figures, you say? Is wealth that all there is to life? The facts and figures don’t add up either. Your beloved capitalism is KILLING this country from the inside out.

You also need a good lesson on empathy.

(Re: Less people working every year, less paying into the system, more drawing and draining on the system.)

The people not paying their fair share into the system are those who can afford off shore tax shelters and can lobby for loopholes in the tax code. The people draining the system are wealthy people who don’t need SSI and take it anyway. I know a fellow, richer than you can imagine. Guy went out and bought a $50,000 car and paid cash. Yet, when his wife needed a hip replacement and Medicare asked a co-pay of $600, he went berserk!

(Re: The poor 25 year olds, working today, will have nothing from our government. I wish everyone had a nice home, job, and a car. )

Those 25 year olds won’t have jobs either, because the 50-75 year olds are still racing to get richer and richer by pulling the rug out from under the American economy through outsourcing jobs and other forms of crafty financial engineering. Besides, why do you worry about anyone taking SSI?

(Re: The way to achieve that is through work and determination.)

Tell that to the slaves, sharecroppers, and serfs throughout history. And, if you had brains or any experience, you’d know that many other factors besides hard labor determine success. To be successful, one’s labor has to be rewarded. One also has to be healthy. One has to be respected and honored by those he labors on behalf of and by the society in which he lives. One also has to be working in or investing into an HONEST system, and not the cutthroat trading games that exist on Wall St.

Most of all, to be successful, one has to be LUCKY. If you are not in the right place at the right time under the right circumstances, it won’t happen no matter how hard you imagine yourself to be working. Luck is the mechanism by which most everything honest occurs because it involves no conscious manipulation on the part of opportunists.

(Re: Stay strong Mr. President, you didn't cause the Hurricane (Katrina), the heat wave we are experiencing, but I know you will be accused.)

Right. Bush didn’t cause it. No one said he did. The POTUS simply dropped the ball on preventative measures and the rescue effort. Sure the fire department didn’t set the blaze, they just stood by while it burned, blamed someone else, and then reneged on their promises to help. .

I have to wonder at this point what you think a president’s job should be.

(Re: Consider the source, the bitter, hate filled Democrats who never got behind their President.)

You mean just like the Republicans got behind Bill Clinton? LOL

Bush was never my president. He was never elected. Not once. You obviously are not a believer in individualism or liberty if, as you assume, one must stand behind a leader no matter what the circumstance. Your ‘my leader/country right or wrong’ attitude is quite disturbing.

Now, you may say that this person's arguments are simplistic and easily debunked, but that really is not the case. Arguments in support of Capitalism have never changed, but have, at certain times gained support from pseudo-philosophies and fancy advertising, neither of which say anything about the consequences of their favored ideals. This fellow had all the requisite talking points well rehearsed.

Repunzel's Dilemma

Does the princess truly await one royal
Or merely any escape from lofty prison?
Should but a plain commoner
Seek to rescue her
Would she still abide by prior decision?

Even should one of regal birth dare ascend
Upon braided locks now lowered aground
For after loving embrace
The problem they’ll eventually face
Is exactly just how both will get down!

Never Really Mine

Strangers dared to call me their own

And even boasted of my presence among them

Adorned in their clothing

Inundated with their culture

And faithfully

Did I imitate their mannerisms

Calling them family

But they were never really mine

I followed their religion

Bearing burdens of unique family bonds and piety

Speaking proudly their accomplishments

Their loving advice a holy word

But internally

Was I raging for something other

I couldn’t withstand anymore

Since they were never really mine

Subconscious desperations leading me astray

From the safety of their caring embraces

Taken to rebellion

Never knowing why

Not even knowing how

Their warm welcomes back into the fold

Now becoming searing wounds

Tears burning my skin

For they were never really mine

No longer could I endure

Living outside of my own context

A new circumstance with no definition

Only a hope

Wherein the eye that is mine

The face that shares my gazes

Lies somewhere beyond the confines

Of the places named home

Where they were never really mine

I go back to them for want of nothing else

Their dutiful forgiveness

Of my oddities and back-lashings sickens me

They cannot fathom

Living without knowing

Being without identity

Picking and choosing yourself is never enough

From among lives

That were never really mine

Rooting for Defeat? Hell Yes!

Am I rooting for defeat in Iraq? You bet! Losing a bad war isn’t such an awful thing. Leaving would save American lives and allow the Iraqis the chance to do it on their own without the constant threat of corporate-oil manipulation and intervention. We should juts cut our losses and be done with it. The problem is that our Chimp-in-Chief cannot nor will not ever admit error and, therefore, will never alter or dismantle his destructive and incredibly stupid ruination of the Middle East and, by way of war funding, the American economy.

I want to see the Americans leave Iraq immediately. This war remains an unprovoked, illegal escapade conjured by oil-hungry robber barons disguised as human beings. At some point, we the people have to say "Enough already!", and bring our brothers and sisters in uniform back home to their waiting families. This illegal invasions, looting, and systematic destruction of both Afghanistan and Iraq must end.

Only a complete boob would believe in "my country right or wrong" without pondering the merits of each national policy. Think about what kind of horrible atrocities that sort of feeble, blind nationalism permits i.e. illegal invasions of sovereign nations, the loss of civil liberties, rampant taxation to support favored industries and military build-up, torture, cronyism, corporate welfare, etc. These 'patriots' see a flag waving somewhere and suddenly every evil done its name become a morally righteous crusade, infallible and beyond any critique or question.

Sorry to say it, but my government and the corporate bastards that dictate our current national policy need to be taken down a few notches and face a hard reality. They are NOT America. They do not define what is American. They are nothing more than sycophantic abusers of ambiguous symbolisms and spout inane, meaningless jingoisms, while deceiving otherwise good, common people with platitudes and colorful banners.

I am a citizen of the world and if the place of my birth and my residence, be it Russia or the US, goes astray from what is decent and good, I speak up loudly. I don't give a shit about flags or national anthems. I care about people. Fuck the corporations and the bomb makers. They have enough blood money already.

Time to end it for good. But how?

Peace

Over-Reacting & Recovery

Over zealous prosecutions and overreaction to everything and anything that occurs is typical American behavior for any and all contacts with law enforcement or those who fall prey to public scorn or scrutiny. This era of zero-tolerance began with Republicans in the 1980s and has now reached its paranoid schizophrenic zenith under the ever-vigilant gaze of the Bush administration’s corporate lackeys and their badge-wielding protectors.

I have watched the government rhetoric and lingo change steadily over the last 25 years into something reminiscent of Soviet-era nomenclature. Everything becomes a ‘war’ on something, but really ends up being an attack on civil liberties in order to maintain the corporate status quo and eventually bleed the average American dry of money and the will to defend his own rights. Dissenters become ‘agitators’, protesters become ‘traitors’, and a man taking a leak become a ‘sex offender’, even though no sex was involved. Kids are expelled from schools for carrying nail clippers and sharing Midol, while airline passengers are strip searched and forbidden from carrying toothpaste on board.

We are the biggest nation of pussies, crybabies, and wimps on the planet. We are afraid of everything it seems. Everyday the ‘terror’ level are raised somewhere for something else. Meantime, the ones who instill the fear and profit from it turn out to be the very same people of whom we need to be wary. A Republican US Attorney soliciting sex with a five-year-old, and yet another law-and-order conservative getting caught looking for blow jobs in a rest stop men’s room.

I do not believe the Democrats innocent in this either. They are a bunch of complicit enablers who don’t know how to use power even when the majority of Americans DEMAND they do something, anything to protect us from the encroachment on our civil liberties. Bill Clinton represents the absolute worst of what the democratic Party had to offer in terms of his capitulation to the corporate establishment and the Republicans or the 1990s. Hillary Clinton will be no different, just a bit less charming, should she attain the Oval Office.

People who are emotionally secure do not live in fear, do not arm themselves for ‘inevitable’ attack, do not imagine enemies behind every bush, and treat their fellow citizens with compassion and offer the benefit of doubt whenever possible. The American trend for overreaction and overzealousness is a mental defect infecting every level of government, local, state, and federal. Their attitude leads them to justify tasering peaceful citizens, seizing assets without proper claim, and torturing those suspected of any and all offenses to even the 'spirit' of the state.

Individuals who behave in this manner are normally considered mentally ill and deemed as dangerous to both themselves and society. We isolate those individuals in order to protect society. What happens when a government goes paranoid schizophrenic? Who is going to institutionalize it? A government has never been known to stop itself from following the wrong course of action. How long before America seeks its emotional recovery?

Unfortunately, nations, much like individuals, must hit their 'bottom' before ever seeking remediation or therapy. I would like to believe that this nation, which regards itself as a beacon of freedom and democracy for the entire planet can see the light before the 'bottom', rushing up towards us becomes too close to avoid. Otherwise, it may be up to the people, through the upheaval and chaos of revolt, that bring the nation full circle and with very mixed results.

I guess we'll see.

Urination: Sex Offense?

A wise man once told me “Morality is something you do when no one else is looking.” Morality differs from ethics in that it has an intangible, personal, and non-causative motivation that disassociates it from the very behaviors it attempts to restrain. Morality is based in nothing more than “God said so”, or “just because” or, as is more likely the case, it becomes simply a matter of personal tastes being projected onto others. I have no objection to anyone having a moral basis for their own behaviors, but to project that intangible onto others is dangerous and misguided.

The inherent danger of morals are that, unless clearly defined, people will find the slope into control freakism very slippery and easy to navigate straight to the bottom. Something without a logical basis, not being reinforced by observable causes and effects, possesses no boundaries in terms of the insanity to which it may lead. The case of public nudity becoming a ‘sex offence’ is a good example of morality gone wrong.

A man stops to urinate along the side of the road or behind a dumpster. Certainly, it would be best if he found a restroom, but he didn’t, so we deal with what we observe. The poor bastard gets caught by a local gendarme and is cited for public nudity, even though the only public around was this man and the cop who saw him peeing. The man is then hauled before a judge and becomes a sex offender, even though there was no sex, no women, no children, or even animals present. The man was simply emptying his bladder in the same manner every one of us do at least three times or more daily.

Now, if the police officer wishes to cite this fellow for ‘public urination’ or littering, which I would agree he should do as we don’t want our streets to smell like cesspools, I would have no issue. However, the lawmakers, forever pandering to the senseless and vengeful moralists, have pushed for tougher penalties for any type of public nudity under the guise of ‘protecting children’. I would also agree that if our ‘public urinator’ was already a REAL sex offender that his behavior now should be treated more seriously.

Morality has made my penis a ‘wrong’ or ‘evil thing’ no matter what it is I am using it for or why I have it out. Morality, since it has no real rules to it, cannot distinguish between right or wrong and therefore anything goes and everything eventually becomes a ‘forbidden’, even under the most innocuous circumstances. People, whose behavior yesterday was perfectly acceptable, if not laudable become, by today’s ‘morality du jour’, enemies of society and virtual pariahs.

In America, we are masters of moralizing. We equate ‘right and wrong’ with ‘good and bad’, when the two have absolutely nothing in common.

For Karen

Only constant thoughts of our time together make the days away from you the least bit bearable. I still see your smiling, radiant face looking up at me in the sunlight and I am smitten again and yet again by your beauty, intelligence, and passion. There is something so simple and so serene between us that we dare resist only because we haven’t acclimated to the joy we thought, perhaps, would never come.

I can tell you that I love you, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to express what I truly feel. Words, no matter how fancy or rhythmic, born from the heart of the cleverest lyricist remain wholly inadequate. Our touching, our kiss together, is everything that anything joyous could be. Your bluest eyes shine as you speak my innermost thoughts back to me. Never have I known this sort of emotion.

We are left lying together, entwined in each others love-tired bodies, and laughing at each other's stupid jokes told in that hazy, haphazard Sunday afternoon post love-making fatigue. The world is all but abandoned to its own designs, not having us to care one whit was transpires beyond the confines of our love.

I love you.

S

If Elected : Vote Shlomo!

If elected, I would endeavor to implement the following changes to our society within the first three months of my administration:

1)Legalize marijuana, prostitution, and assisted suicide (If we are serious about the concept of individual freedom, then let's get serious about it!)

2) Universal Health Care (We can't shout "united we stand" with any sense of pride if we aren't willing to care for one another.)

3) Universal Education K-PhD (We always talk-talk-talk about the importance of education for the welfare of our economy and nation, but we treat students like second class citizens and force them to spend more time working than studying.)

4) Ecologically Based National Mass Transit System

5) Increase in Hemp production for paper and bio-fuel (No more special deals for the lumber and paper industry.)

6) The President will be permitted one intern-administered blow-job for each fiscal year providing the the budget is balanced for said year. Should there be a revenue surplus for any year, the President will then be permitted to have the intern stroke his balls as well. (Should the President be a female, then it means that I wasn't elected.)

7) There will be no bombs dropped on anyone who doesn't drop one on us first. No preemptive wars or policing of peoples whose nation's name most of us cannot even spell. If we don't like a nation's policies, we can just as easily ruin their lives by dropping Britney Spears albums on them.

Shlomo in '08!

Dear Hater

What I would give for hatred pure
Such a thing would surely give me pause
If only your sense of right and wrong be truly sure
In critiquing all my many flaws

But alas you’re just the sort of fellow
Whose merely hates which he can’t understand
Could anyone, white, black, red, or yellow
Ever fulfill your harsh demands?

So hate me as you do already
From that much I expect you won’t relent
Bearing rancor, firm and steady
Not for me as me, but for what I, to you, must represent

Come now, good hater, face up to your foe
Whom you regard in such low esteem
Then perhaps you can hate him from what of him you know
Rather than that for which he only seems

Talking Tough?

He challenged me boldly in two-fisted duel
Thinking I might be the kind of fool
To take him up upon this barbaric offer
Without pondering options I may instead proffer

With such hostility does he my person despise
Yet, were wherewithal had then perhaps otherwise
He’d engage me from across a board of chess
And spare us both a bloody awful mess

Having yet to decide which course to pursue
I’ll give it consideration, maybe just for a day or two
Reflecting upon the harsh, taunting threat
Before involving in something that I might later regret

Defeating me in combat he may very well succeed
But trust me on this, he will suffer indeed
Staggering home victorious that awesome night
While knowing for certain it was one hell of a fight