Yesterday I got briefly caught up in reading some hateful tweets from a Texan who was overjoyed that Kay Bailey Hutchinson was retiring … and clearly hoping for someone more to the far, far, far right to replace her.  This person’s Twitterstream was filled with animus and venom … racist, degrading, just hateful … and of course also full of that familiar victim feeling that we’ve been hearing a lot lately from some of the leading lights of the right.

Anyway – I read this person’s tweets and started composing retorts in my head, searching for the perfect one that would break through the miasma and maybe … just maybe … jolt this unfortunate woman into seeing how noxious her spew was.  (Or at least show the Twitterverse!)

Then I thought … STOP!  There is absolutely no point in reading or retorting to this stuff.  No point at all.

To remind myself of this, I just took a peek at that thin, blond smart-ass right-winger’s latest post (not willing to give even the smallest SEO points to these folks by mentioning their names) and felt that small jolt of incendiary anger that I always do … then set it aside.

If you need a bit of aerobic exercise, I recommend these sites.  I have even thought of creating a Twitter list titled “Haters” or something like that … to have them in one place, for that little adrenalin rush that one occasionally needs in the morning.

But there are far better ways to get that rush … and far better conversations to have.

So here’s to the marginalization of this hateful stuff in the coming year.  There is, quite simply, no need for it … and I am going to do my part to stop responding and focusing on what is degrading to us all.

There are far better ways to spend our collective time and energy.