Dear Mr. Sirota

My Twitter name is Butterose and you may not remember me from our Saturday March 23 exchange because I know you exchange like that with many, many online users. However, you and I had an exchange that left me feeling as if I'd been run over by a Mack truck. That particular experience left me feeling that way because what you did made absolutely 0 sense to me, and it didn't result in any change of my opinion that you nitpick over the drone issue.

In case you think this is intended to be a "poor, poor, pitiful me" complaint, I accept responsibility for what happened simply because had I not said a word to you, I wouldn't have been noticed. However, I am an American Citizen so I've been raised with the idea that I'm allowed to speak my mind as long as I'm not yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. Apparently saying (in my opinion) you nitpick the drone issue and overlook the war issue is equal to yelling FIRE!

We sent our troops to Iraq & Afghanistan and many of our small towns now have parks named after our dead. Where was @davidsirota voice then?
—Sharon W. (@Butterose) March 23, 2013

I agree, it really wasn't necessary to do that, but it also isn't slander or lying. Which are among the kinder things you said about me in response.

In the category of things you should know about me before you jump into things with me are this. I have NO influence on Twitter because I want none. I'm a 63 year old grandmother with a great deal of experience in life. I was raised in a Republican household and chose to work for the Democrats at the age of 14. Probably, now that I think about it, because of the assassination of President Kennedy. I joined the Young Democrats of America in 1964. Kneejerk emotional reaction? GUILTY!

Also, I'm somewhat lower on the financial foodchain thanks to my age and numerous years of "trickle down" economics. At a time when we should have been saving for our old age, we were using that money to keep my husband's business afloat. We have managed enough for our needs except for healthcare and as Hubby says, at least he had a job when others didn't, even if it didn't pay him. How many YEARS has our Congress failed to address the economic issue? How many times has Congress tried to repeal the ACA? The one thing I actually can't afford for myself, healthcare, is the one thing they've spent their entire time trying to destroy.

You believe that drones are killing innocents in other countries. Call me amoral but I'm more concerned with the gun violence on our own streets and the deaths of thousands here. I'm also devastated by our own loss of a loved one in Iraq and the loss of the grandchildren of many of my friends in the same place as well as Afghanistan.

Last week in a couple of very small villages here in CNY a 64 year old man took a shotgun and shot 6 people in 2 separate businesses. He killed 4 of them. These villages are less than 25 miles away from me. My grandson was in school here and the school locked down due to the violence. Dying on my own street at the hands of someone who has issues and a gun is quickly becoming a possibility. There's far too much wrong with my OWN life for me to be concerned about drones. I laud you for your commitment to YOUR cause but it isn't MY cause and can't be because I live a completely different life with opinions that are based on MY circumstances and yes on MY emotions.

I live in a rural area where cable isn't available to me so my internet is provided by satellite. Given the rapid fire of your tweets to me, I know yours is much faster. Since it is much faster and my eyes, at 63 require I read slower, I would have 2 to 3 more tweets to read before I could even begin to post a response. This lead to your further frustration and your decision to say I was gross and pathological because I refused to acknowledge your accusation and apologize.

You don't further YOUR cause by browbeating others that disagree with you. You fail to acknowledge that their lives have any input into their opinions and by doing so you destroy any ability you have to help people see things your way.

You latched on to the Rand Paul filibuster because he agreed with your opinion on drones. I am unimpressed because his overall ideology indicates to me that his position on drones was nothing more than a ploy, yet YOU accused me, without any knowledge of me, of being a Hillary supporter and a Dem lover. Was this because I do not agree with your focus on drones when there is so much wrong with things that actually affect my  ability to keep on breathing and enjoy doing so? I don't know because I'm not going to assume anything about you.

I'm not asking for an apology from you. I am telling you something for your own good maybe. Your arguments may have merit, it's getting lost in your incessant need to fight people over every little nitpicking thing. Slow down, listen to what they say and then tailor your arguments in a way that allows their feelings some validity and they MIGHT be willing to think about what you say. Change is hard work, but it can happen. When you mistreat people simply because you can there will never be any change. Think about that.

Sincerely;

Butterose