Of potshots and bull's-eyes

A few months ago, I stopped podcasting my hate mail, to redirect my efforts toward generating ever more hate mail. That strategy seems to have worked, if these recent samples from my mailbag are any indication:

Writing about Internet conspiracy theories is like dragging a carcass down a street lined with starving dogs: You know you will hear some howling. So when I suggested in October that George Bush would not declare martial law and cancel the 2008 elections, the blogosphere reacted accordingly. "You've been conditioned like so many commentators who say any postulation is conspiracy theory," Bryan Duke wrote. "Have you ever heard of Real Politik? Machiavellian ideas? They exist and absolutely depend on the need for disinformation and secrecy, i.e., conspiracy."

Likewise it was heretical of me to find some scholars who thought that George Bush might not be the worst president in American history. Michael Lasalandra of Cambridge took polite exception, asking, "What other president has presided over as many huge catastrophes? I enjoy your column, Alex, but you missed the boat on this one, big time." Another reader simply wrote: "Got to go and throw up now."

There are many rules to column writing, and one of them is: Get Read. I suspected that if I voted before Nov. 4, and published my ballot choices on the morning of Election Day, I would get some feedback. And I did.

My socially acceptable Obama vote went unremarked upon, but my votes against ballot questions 2 and 3 did not. Question 2 was the George Soros-backed referendum that decriminalized possession of a small amount of marijuana. "Pathetic," reader Bill Cullen wrote in. "Let's deny a life to kids who smoke pot just like you did." "I'm disappointed that you voted 'No' on Question 2," Mike Schuster wrote from Foxborough. "I think the illegality of marijuana is a human rights issue. And it makes so many people happy - I don't understand why possession and/or use of it is a criminal offense."

Schuster was one of the rare readers who approved of my opposition to Question 3, which put the state's greyhound tracks out of business. "I also voted 'No' on Question 3," Schuster said. "I did not want to have many dogs lose their jobs - It's tough enough to find work as a human in this economy."

More typical was this reaction for a reader who provided only her initials: "I have been a faithful reader of your column for more years than I care to mention. However, today was the last time I will be doing so. . . . After reading your piece on how you voted, specifically your position on Question 3, I was disgusted and frankly ashamed of you as a writer and more importantly as a human being! . . . Thank you for enlightening me and scores of other readers to the kind of person you are. . . . Believe me, Mr. Beam, no one cares how you voted on anything and now I hope no one cares to read you anymore!!!"

Ouch.

In a recent, guaranteed-to-offend column about Southern historians who don't plan to celebrate the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, I tossed in a casual slur against atheists, who have rebranded themselves "humanists," to avoid what they must perceive as the stigma of not believing in God. "I'll make sure we atheists remember Lincoln as a great man in our Darwin Day celebrations," Jason Torpy wrote me from New York. "Most likely though, your atheist and humanist friends would say Winter Solstice is the new Christmas. . . . That's what the Christians liked about pagan celebrations when they co-opted Solstice celebrations for their own use."

Predictably, many readers pushed back against the idea that Lincoln was the villain of the Civil War. "The real villain of the Civil War was Robert E. Lee," Joe King wrote from Westford. "He was well educated and (reputedly) against slavery. He had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States when he went to West Point and when he later joined the U.S. Army. . . . I have no use for him or for the antediluvian Southerners who continue unrealistically to bemoan his lost cause."

"The elephant in the room with those who say Abe destroyed the sacred principles of federalism enshrined in the original version of the Constitution is basic human decency - unless, of course, one has no objection to slavery," wrote Doug Black of Ipswich. "I chuckled at the Abe-phobe who said Lincoln's aim was to grab power for himself and tell others how to live their lives. That defines the slavery the South wanted to perpetuate."

Thank you for reading, and thank you for writing! Happy holidays to all.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.