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I understand if someone is judged for the rest of their life by a 3 min video clip if the clip shows them shooting someone.

But having an argument with someone?

Before my Mom died, we were having an argument in the family that was splitting us apart, and I said some terrible things to my sister to her face that I should have just shut up about.

I wasn’t swearing. I wasn’t yelling. I wasn’t resorting to ad hominem, I was stating solid fact. In these things I can be even-tempered generally, but on this, as I explain below, I was pretty angry.

My dying mother was trying to moderate the argument, and she asked me a point blank question which I honestly answered. But it was unkind to have answered. A better person would have just lied or dropped it quietly. But I didn’t. I succumbed to my anger and desire to lash out, which I regret to this day, even if it was the truth.

My mom soon lapsed into unconsciousness and died a few days later, and I wish I had never said what I did. I would have taken it back if I could have and explained it to my mome, but it was too late.

If someone took a three minute video of that discusson, and just played it without any supporting context, I would look like a terrible, terrible, mean, thoughtless, selfish person.

But I had good reason. We had worked for weeks to get my mom into a care facility, not a hospital, that could care for a case of shingles like the awful one my mom had that was covering about a third of her body. We couldn’t care for her at home. So we found a place, and my mom, who had brain metastases, didn’t want to be there, and when my sister came from out of state, without even consulting those of us who had been caring for her for months, she removed my mom from the facility and brought her back home. I was outraged, after all we had done, hours and days of wrangling with insurance and the health care provider until they got her into the long-term rehab facility.

So, I was angry, after all we had done to get her care, that my sister came in and my mom implored her to take her back home, which she did. Then my sister left and went home, leaving all of us to have to figure out what to do next. My mom passed shortly after my sister came back in-state and the discussion occurred.

That is context. But I would feel an injustice if people judged me without that context on the basis of a three minute video taken at the peak of an argument.

As I said, I don’t know Steven Crowder. But I have seen dozens of worse arguments between people who are still married and managed to survive the arguments. My parents come to mind, who were devoted to the ends of their lives. But when you heard one of their arguments, you were sure the marriage was over. I just don’t think this video is worth what is being ascribed to it.