Hiding your lying eyes: CONCERN TAXPAYER, this one's for you

The following is my personal response to a comment posted previously in NA Confidential.

As a sidebar, there are those who believe that anti-social anonymity should not be dignified with a response like mine, but to me, destructive ignorance is permitted to breed in the absence of instruction to the contrary.

I believe there is a proper way to play this game, and that truly civilized people are fully capable of learning the rules.

Finally, I believe that “whoop-ass” lies in the mind (or mindlessness) of the beholder. Any garden-variety fascist can shout down a speaker … but not every cappuccino can write a paragraph.

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On Wednesday, May 4, CONCERN TAXPAYER wrote:

I was present at The last City Council Meeting. 1st I would like to "respond" to ‘TAXPAYER,this ones for you.’ Your only Complaint is I used "CAPS". (Can you hear me now?)

Only complaint?

Really, I liked you better when you were just plain TAXPAYER, because CONCERN TAXPAYER is so annoyingly ungrammatical – not that proper grammar matters to the sort of person who would post poison pen notes anonymously, or who would do so under multiple aliases.

The intrinsic rudeness of your situation cannot be rectified by improved grammar alone, though perhaps it might be alleviated somewhat by emergency toilet training.

Remember, though, that foaming at the mouth is a sure sign of rabies … or stunted social skills.

So I challenge you Mr. Baylor that if there is anything "I have lied about ON yOUR bLOG" Concerning TAXPAYER-this one's for you. And you can back it up with written proof. About JAMES GARNER. I will remove "MY SO CALLED-MASK." DEAL?

The proverbial haystack needle is easier to find than the central point of this paragraph, which may or may not be one (or all) of the following:

(a) Show me where I lied on your blog in my latest comment post, when my mask said CONCERN TAXPAYER and not TAXPAYER.

(b) Show me where I lied on the specific previous comment post when my mask said TAXPAYER and not CONCERN TAXPAYER.

(c) Show me where I lied about Mayor Garner in any of my anonymous comment posts, whether my mask said TAXPAYER or CONCERN TAXPAYER.

When it comes to the fundamental irresponsibility of anonymity, three swinging strikes should constitute an out, but I’ll pretend that you got a wee bit of otherwise flaccid wood on the last pitch, and I’ll attempt an answer.

Unfortunately, without the necessary clarification that, by definition, cannot be forthcoming from a person who can’t or won’t abide by the rules of civilized discourse and chooses instead to remain masked, I must choose a letter myself sans guidance, so I have decided to pick (a).

Read carefully while I prove that you’re a liar, and do so without having to work very hard at it.

On Wednesday, May 4, CONCERN TAXPAYER wrote:

Excuse me "Roger"- who was the two men walking out of Mayor Garner's office on Monday night before City Council Meeting. None other than you Mr. Baylor and your side kick "Kojak". (he must of ran outta lolly pops).

This one’s a real whopper on your part, although none of us are holding our breaths waiting for the masked face of cowardice to own up to a tremendous lie, even though he (or she) was the one to brought it up in the first place and offered the challenge.

Yawn. Here’s the “written proof” of your lying that you so intemperately demand.

On Monday night before the meeting, just as Randy Smith and I prepared to enter the City County Building from its north entrance facing Spring Street, my cell phone rang and I stopped to answer it, so Randy entered the building without me.

I don't know whether he took the stairs or the elevator, for the simple reason that I wasn’t with him.

Minutes later I walked alone up the north stairs and then down the hall, past the immediate vicinity of the Mayor's office, and into the conference room, where I found Randy already seated.

Since I've never entered the Mayor's office, I'm not exactly sure which one it is, but of course there's no way to enter the conference room from the north stairwell without walking past the vicinity of his office.

So, I can't begin to account for what you, CONCERN TAXPAYER, "saw" or why you believe in the palpably and demonstrably untrue, but it is clear that for you to state that I emerged from a place I’ve never been, accompanied by someone who’d already entered the meeting room, is definitely a "lie."

Perhaps the fib is an unintentional one, and someone lied to you with respect to what he or she pretended to "see," but it's a lie just the same.

Off with the mask ... it's being peeled away now ... ohmygod, the unspeakable horror ... it's ... it's ...

Dick ... Nixon?

Nah, different liar.

CONCERN TAXPAYER, please understand that your freedom of speech is not in question.

However, just as plagiarism is an abuse of the responsibility that accompanies free speech, so is lying, and by the terms of your challenge, I’ve proven that you lied.

Now, you must own up, or I’ll begin deleting all comments that come from TAXPAYER or CONCERN TAXPAYER. You do not have to do so publicly, but you must do so. My e-mail address is known, as is my name. I wouldn’t have it any other way, both as a man, and as an American.

Of course, CONCERN TAXPAYER/TAXPAYER/ANGER TAXPAYER, you’ll be free to register yet again, under yet another anonymous tag, even though starting your own blog would be a vastly better way of conveying your thoughts to the world than lobbing eggs at the portion of my house that few people see two days later.

But isn’t it far less about the meat than it is about the motion of resuming a
hateful and ultimately self-consuming war against the very values –- those American patriotic mantras of freedom -- that decent, civilized people hold dear, and that you, CONCERN TAXPAYER, almost certainly also hold dear because you’re a patriotic American, right, albeit one so completely blinded by righteous anger, disappointment and confusion that you cannot see the damage your anonymous attacks do to you own cherished core beliefs.

Anyway, you have until tomorrow evening to respond.

Thank you.