The Guantanamo Bay analogy is one I try especially hard not to engage in debate over, since it brings in a whole bunch of realworld things that irritate me and I start responding to perceived military-bashing instead of what's actually been said, which is generally something rational and merit-filled along the lines of "The Geneva Convention is A Good Thing" and doesn't merit a snarling reply. Doesn't matter. All I hear is, "We hate the military, including your relatives in it, who are facists, and we hate your favorite characters, too, and you are not welcome in fandom uness you hate the military and despise Bush as well." And even though I'm not one of Bush's greatest fans either, it puts my back up.

"Hey," I want to say, "remember how when the Guantanamo Bay scandal was making the front page of the New York Times, insurgents in Iraq were beheading civilian prisoners and broadcasting their executions on live television, and yet that was always below the fold, if it made the front page at all."

And then free-association brings back my desire to slap Cindy Sheehan's "trading on my dead son's memory as a cheap political tactic" face, even though that's only tangentially related, and I start grinding my teeth and unfairly associating the commenter who's just brought up Guantanamo with Micheal Moore, again for no good reason.

Because every now and then, I am forceably reminded that, while I'm pretty liberal compared to most of America, compared to fandom-at-large, I'm conservative.