Lesson Learned : If you're going into a snake pit, bring backup.

Or at least some snake repellent.

So, I've visited my last forum for a while. I posted something as my first post in this "community" and was quickly swarmed by the self-described "vets". I had the audacity to post something critical, and because of that, I was subject to my rightful "hazing".

Now, as a first post, it may not have been wise to post something critical of the owner of this forum board, but that's what happens when you let something fester in your mind for a while...until it just has to come out. And perhaps I shouldn't have been so negative, though being critical by definition tends to have a negative tone to it. But I certainly could have rephrased it, to take away the bite of my sarcastic tone in the message.

The thing that may surprise you is that this was a conservative forum board. In fact, it was the forum board for whom I've stated in the past that I'm a fan of. It was the forum board of Glenn Beck's web site.

Since we don't get Glenn's his radio show around here, I subscribe to his service so I can download his radio show to the iPod. I've watched Glenn for a little over a year now, and there is something that's always bothered me about him...or more specifically about his website.

He sells merchandise on his website with the insignia "Hate U" and "H8U" branded on it. I was shocked when I first came upon this. I knew there'd have to be an explaination, but also suspected that any explaination likely wouldn't justify the insignia...at least to me.

As it turns out, the Hate U, as in Hate University, merchandise came about when Glenn was on Good Morning America one day with Geraldo Rivera. I am not positive if Glenn was saying that he wanted a closed border, or if he was merely in favor of a border fence, but in any event, he was labeled a hatemonger by Geraldo Rivera, and told that he teaches people to hate. So Glenn decided to embrace the label, albeit sarcastically, and create a line of merchandise that would sarcastically display the hatemonger label. Thus, Hate U was born.

To me, that's not justifiable reasoning to create t-shirts in which any person that doesn't know Glenn Beck(an overwhelming majority in this world) wouldn't understand the meaning behind Hate U. A t-shirt can not explain the sarcastic meaning behind Hate U, and any passerby reading a Hate U shirt would, in all likelihood, automatically be offended by the shirt. I'm not saying we have to walk on eggshells not to offend people, but "Hate U" ignores the eggs and the shells, it stomps all over the chicken.

I should clarify that I don't believe Glenn to be a hatemonger. I find him to be upstanding, inciteful, reasoned, and very much caring of the future of this country. As such, I felt that I needed to send an email to him, which is to say his staff, that I though he should drop the Hate U merchandise. Of course I had no expectations that this would happen, but I felt compelled to try to plead my case.

I hadn't really thought of it much sense, until he recently started saying on his radio show that we had to let go of the hate. That message was within the larger context of each individual person needing to find out who they are and what they believe in. I could get into a big rant on this larger message he spoke of, but suffice to say this larger message he was preaching about already had me in a negative frame of mind. So when he came to the bullet point of letting go of the hate, it was the first time I thought the man a hypocrite. Lecture about letting go of hate, but sell shirts with Hate boldly emblazened on it?! Outrageous!

So, after the second day of him speaking about letting go of hate, I felt compelled again to point out this incongruency, only this time to his "Insider" forum. To be honest, I figured his forum would be filled with conservative, reasoned individuals such as myself, and quite frankly like Glenn.

Boy was I wrong. The tongue lashing I took...the personal attacks that were flung my way...the unreasonable spin in which a few, very few, tried to justify the incongruency...well it shocked me.

It shouldn't have. I knew going in how gang-like other forum communities are. But this sealed the deal...if you've seen one forum board, you've seen them all. I was trying to confirm Glenn's message of letting go of hate, which should include not brandishing Hate on t-shirts, and all I got was hatred for even daring to question the glaringly obvious double standard.

The mere way the forum board is set up was creepy, to say the least. New posters(based on post count) are labeled Corky. I quickly recognized that to be a slam on the intelligence level based on the main character from the TV show, Life Goes On. Their forum rules openly promoted hazing on the new posters.

Many posters, at least the ones that replied to my thread, had over 15000 posts. I can only assume that the vast majority of those had to be emoticon filled replies that had nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

To be honest, all of this made me question the very integrity of Glenn Beck. Even if the man is a huge proponent of free speech, this seemed to be well beyond political incorrectness run amuk or promoting rational discussions on his board. But I had to try to not hold him responsible for what others said on his board. Then I soon realized that many of the people on his forums either didn't listen to Glenn anymore, or didn't like him anymore, or both. The very next broadcast that I listented to of Glenn's made me realize that he has left those in him forum boards behind. He has evolved his thinking, grown as a person, whereas these others had not.

So that was my first personal experience with hatred on the on the right. It was good though, because it reinforced me to think critically of everyone, even those I listen to and agree with a lot...for no one can be right 100% of the time. Except for God, that is...right Rocket? :)