This is why I'm giving serious, and not just lip-service consideration to unplugging the computer, shutting myself in and never talking to another living soul.
Let me give you a quick example of what I'm talking about. Now, I abhor racism, but what happens when political correctness gets taken too far?
Remember this video?
I was enjoying reviewing my childhood somewhere, and someone, looking over my shoulder, expressed horror and disgust.
"Ugh. RACISM AND animal cruelty....."
What, I say what, the fuck?
Jim Henson was NOT a racist. Jim Henson DELIBERATELY made the Sesame Street muppets without an identifiable color, and made all the monsters lovable and furry so kids would learn to rewrite what their preconceptions were. Sesame Street put an HIV+ muppet on in South Africa to combat stigma against that disease, etc. Yer BARKIN UP THE WRONG TREE ACCUSING THAT MAN OF BEING AN ASSHOLE.
But I guess once you win all the battles against the real problems that faced you, you either get a real job or keep trying to be professional victim against increasingly bizarre and only-in-your-head scenarios.
In a similar vein, I was on a public train with a buddy and were discussing various bits of esoteric music on iTunes. I said I enjoyed a lot of stuff I'd heard lately, but TRY AS I MIGHT, I personally could not get into Ani DiFranco, because her music just didn't do anything for me PERSONALLY.
Enter the multiply pierced, shaven headed 15 year old who's at the right age and right level of social conscience that she knows everything. She proceeds to lecture me for two minutes straight on how AWESOME Ani DiFranco is, how I'm clearly part of the patriarchy and that maybe I should review the First Amendment, etc.
To which I said, and I quote. "Who fucking asked you? Was I even talking to you? No, I wasn't. Learn some manners and shut the fuck up, then."
Now, I'd have even entertained the scowling little bitch if I'd said Ani DiFranco was a "carpet muncher", or a "bitch", or that "her music sucks", sure. But what I said was, it didn't speak to me personally. I'm not an adolescent girl nor have I ever had my period start in the middle of a business meeting. It doesn't resonate. I don't have a cervix or a vagina. It is meaningless TO ME.
Don't get me started on how tough I must be to tough talk a 15 year old girl. I did a similar thing to a three hundred and twenty five pound construction worker who was trash talking some poor girl who had two lip piercings, multicolored hair and dressed like an SG who was just minding her own business but who just happened to be the butt of openly spoken jokes.
And for the record, I've NEVER had anyone respect MY First Amendment rights. Liberals hate me for my lack of groupthink and conservatives hate me for my similar lack of groupthink or my hatred for certain genders and colours. Fuck em ALL.
While we're on the subject of language misunderstanding and assorted craziness....
Let's define a few terms, shall we?
A FRIEND is someone who you have known for ages, and who you would do a LOT of things for, and who you would support through thick or thin. You will have maybe TWO or THREE of these people in your life. It is not someone you've never met whose MySpace page you think is compatible with yours.
A BROTHER is someone who is of the same mother as yourself, who has saved your life in a firefight in the same unit, or who will absolutely and unequivocally have your back, no matter what. Someone who will sell his car to make sure you don't get evicted by paying your rent til you're back on your feet. It does NOT mean some random guy you'd think it "cool" to call this. Most people will NEVER have one of these.
A WHORE is someone who trades sex or the promise of sex to get what he or she wants. Very few women are whores, but when they do this, they are WHORES. For some weird reason, we think this somewhat stigmatising, so we're trying to get "sex worker" used instead. No, no, she's not a junkie hooker, she's a substance-American sex-worker.
It is not FONDLING. It is MOLESTATION. Why did we let diddlers redefine the terminology? You fondle a lover or a really nice motorcycle gas tank. When you do it to a child or an unwilling adult it is a crime. We used to call it molestation and call it a crime. Now we call it a lifestyle choice and put the person in question at the top of the R&B charts.
A FEMINIST, I see now, is somebody who hates men. Someone who seems to think that there is some kind of hive-think that makes us all think the same way and oppress the same way. If a friend of yours got raped, it wasn't that the guy was a scumbag (and please point him out so he can be dealt with....) the guy was acting as the foot soldier in a co-ordinated effort to scare and enslave women, called the PATRIARCHY. If you merely think women should have the same rights as men, you are not a feminist, you are pro-equality which I endorse and support.
A MASCULINIST is the same but the inverse, somebody who hates women. Usually a bitter asshole who'se decided that women are not independent and sometimes nurturing creatures but belonging to a hive-think called the MATRIARCHY that seeks to oppress them at all opportunity. Recent events have created these funny little creatures. They occasionally, like the homothropic shaven headed boot wearing Millie Tants of this world, have a point.
Both sides need their tinfoil hats adjusting.
This is why I am out of lock-step with the world. Carry on as you were.
Let me give you a quick example of what I'm talking about. Now, I abhor racism, but what happens when political correctness gets taken too far?
Remember this video?
I was enjoying reviewing my childhood somewhere, and someone, looking over my shoulder, expressed horror and disgust.
"Ugh. RACISM AND animal cruelty....."
What, I say what, the fuck?
Jim Henson was NOT a racist. Jim Henson DELIBERATELY made the Sesame Street muppets without an identifiable color, and made all the monsters lovable and furry so kids would learn to rewrite what their preconceptions were. Sesame Street put an HIV+ muppet on in South Africa to combat stigma against that disease, etc. Yer BARKIN UP THE WRONG TREE ACCUSING THAT MAN OF BEING AN ASSHOLE.
But I guess once you win all the battles against the real problems that faced you, you either get a real job or keep trying to be professional victim against increasingly bizarre and only-in-your-head scenarios.
In a similar vein, I was on a public train with a buddy and were discussing various bits of esoteric music on iTunes. I said I enjoyed a lot of stuff I'd heard lately, but TRY AS I MIGHT, I personally could not get into Ani DiFranco, because her music just didn't do anything for me PERSONALLY.
Enter the multiply pierced, shaven headed 15 year old who's at the right age and right level of social conscience that she knows everything. She proceeds to lecture me for two minutes straight on how AWESOME Ani DiFranco is, how I'm clearly part of the patriarchy and that maybe I should review the First Amendment, etc.
To which I said, and I quote. "Who fucking asked you? Was I even talking to you? No, I wasn't. Learn some manners and shut the fuck up, then."
Now, I'd have even entertained the scowling little bitch if I'd said Ani DiFranco was a "carpet muncher", or a "bitch", or that "her music sucks", sure. But what I said was, it didn't speak to me personally. I'm not an adolescent girl nor have I ever had my period start in the middle of a business meeting. It doesn't resonate. I don't have a cervix or a vagina. It is meaningless TO ME.
Don't get me started on how tough I must be to tough talk a 15 year old girl. I did a similar thing to a three hundred and twenty five pound construction worker who was trash talking some poor girl who had two lip piercings, multicolored hair and dressed like an SG who was just minding her own business but who just happened to be the butt of openly spoken jokes.
And for the record, I've NEVER had anyone respect MY First Amendment rights. Liberals hate me for my lack of groupthink and conservatives hate me for my similar lack of groupthink or my hatred for certain genders and colours. Fuck em ALL.
While we're on the subject of language misunderstanding and assorted craziness....
Let's define a few terms, shall we?
A FRIEND is someone who you have known for ages, and who you would do a LOT of things for, and who you would support through thick or thin. You will have maybe TWO or THREE of these people in your life. It is not someone you've never met whose MySpace page you think is compatible with yours.
A BROTHER is someone who is of the same mother as yourself, who has saved your life in a firefight in the same unit, or who will absolutely and unequivocally have your back, no matter what. Someone who will sell his car to make sure you don't get evicted by paying your rent til you're back on your feet. It does NOT mean some random guy you'd think it "cool" to call this. Most people will NEVER have one of these.
A WHORE is someone who trades sex or the promise of sex to get what he or she wants. Very few women are whores, but when they do this, they are WHORES. For some weird reason, we think this somewhat stigmatising, so we're trying to get "sex worker" used instead. No, no, she's not a junkie hooker, she's a substance-American sex-worker.
It is not FONDLING. It is MOLESTATION. Why did we let diddlers redefine the terminology? You fondle a lover or a really nice motorcycle gas tank. When you do it to a child or an unwilling adult it is a crime. We used to call it molestation and call it a crime. Now we call it a lifestyle choice and put the person in question at the top of the R&B charts.
A FEMINIST, I see now, is somebody who hates men. Someone who seems to think that there is some kind of hive-think that makes us all think the same way and oppress the same way. If a friend of yours got raped, it wasn't that the guy was a scumbag (and please point him out so he can be dealt with....) the guy was acting as the foot soldier in a co-ordinated effort to scare and enslave women, called the PATRIARCHY. If you merely think women should have the same rights as men, you are not a feminist, you are pro-equality which I endorse and support.
A MASCULINIST is the same but the inverse, somebody who hates women. Usually a bitter asshole who'se decided that women are not independent and sometimes nurturing creatures but belonging to a hive-think called the MATRIARCHY that seeks to oppress them at all opportunity. Recent events have created these funny little creatures. They occasionally, like the homothropic shaven headed boot wearing Millie Tants of this world, have a point.
Both sides need their tinfoil hats adjusting.
This is why I am out of lock-step with the world. Carry on as you were.