Being Right

Evan Wilson writes:

To be right, in the "correct" sense, is such a warm feeling. It is a happiness. Why is it that so many people who have a "correct" stance on something can't seem to be happy until they that disagree can be brought to agreement? These thought fascists can be watched plunging into greater and greater despair while they with whom they converse resist them. Being "right" doesn't make them happy. In my mind this is evidential. I suggest that this need to convince is rooted in their lack of security about whether they are, in fact, right. They know that they will feel more "right" if more people get on board with the idea. I have been asked, on telling someone of one of my more bizarre views, if anyone else agrees with me. Truth, thankfully, is not democratic.

Wise words. What is frustrating for me is not necessarily my failure to persuade, or that there are others out there that disagree with me. It is, rather, that the people in the wrong tend to have a monopoly on guns. And instead of persuasion, they use force.