If any of you have Republican friends, I’m sure you’ve fallen victim to their waves of right-wing spam. One of the recent one, which started going around before Tuesday’s Great Awakening, is a mock “program” for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. I won’t repost it here, but suffice it to say that the first line is this:

7 p.m. — Opening Flag-Burning Ceremony

You get the idea.

Anyway, this morning, this bit of crap arrived yet again in my in-box, from an old friend of mine who resides on the different side of the political fence from me. He sent it with a note that said he got it from another friend and he thought I “would enjoy it.” Yeah, right.

But I suppose I feel emboldened by what happened on Tuesday. I have, truly, had enough. “I have had a belly full of this,” as former Democratic Speaker of the Georgia House Tom Murphy used to say.

So I didn’t just delete the thing and move on this time. I wrote my friend back. Thought I’d share it with y’all.

“And what, dear friend, would make you think that I would enjoy yet another round of the same kind of crap I’ve put up with from every Republican I know over the last six years?

“I and my fellow Democrats have been belittled and abused for our beliefs for years now. Our Republican brethren never seem to want to talk about the issues. They only want to find new ways to call us pussies and bleeding hearts. I am truly and thoroughly sick of it. It’s not funny. I mean, it would be easy enough for me to put together a similar ‘program’ for the upcoming Republican convention, replete with references to — oh, I don’t know — a “Tribute to Mark Foley, featuring live, on-stage buttfucking of teenage boys” or some such. It would be satisfying, briefly, but it would be a waste of time.

“My point is this: Belittling is easy. Doing something isn’t. Name-calling is easy. Reaching out across our political differences to find workable middle ground is not. But it’s what we need to be doing.

“So I want you to know that you are my friend, and I love you. But when we talk about politics in future, it needs to be a constructive discussion. Not this crap. Because I’m through with it. And judging by Tuesday’s election results, I am far from alone in that way of thinking.”

It made me feel better to write it. Maybe it’ll make y’all feel better to read it. People all over the place are fighting back. Let’s keep it up. But let’s do it constructively.