"But the harm of substituting one's judgment for someone else's, someone who claims to be infallible [or giving up one's critical thinking to someone's writings as conveniently interpreted by some other someone who also cannot be questioned], en masse, is too dangerous and has too long a history of resulting in bloodshed and irrational, fervently passionate hatred. Whenever you give up your ability to think for yourself and surrender it to another party, you've made yourself a pawn for some constituency to use for its own self-interest. And you're complicit. You may have been duped but you are not blameless.

I think it's shameful to pander to liars and demagogues, to pretend we should be building bridges, as some have suggested we should all do in the aftermath of the election, with people who want nothing but to crush us with pure hate. That's what it is when people rabidly demand that love between queer couples and women's reproductive freedom be criminalized. It's hate. It's not a difference of opinion. And nothing galvanizes loyalty and solidarity like shared hate. That's what the Bush campaign so cunningly capitalized on: it ran on hate. Not just religious hate directed against gays and women but hate of foreigners, immigrants, the poor, and of anyone who holds any belief or thought different from one's own. And -- we should hardly be surprised, I guess -- won."