Picking fights
June 18th, 2015 | 
Author: There should be some sort of meter.
A scientific instrument.
To measure it.
As soon as they say anything like “Obama’s Kenyan socialist/communist policies are sinking this once proud Christian nation”, I just have to walk away.
Because, well.
I used to argue.
I used to get angry.
I’m not necessarily some huge fan of our president but I don’t hate him and my problems with him are really only because I’m paying attention.
I’ve finally figured out that no matter how much I humiliate them in my eyes they are never humiliated in theirs. This gives me pause because what if I’m that stupid and don’t know it too? There’s a conundrum I’ve grappled with. I’m grateful to have worked it out and you’ll be pleased to know that I’m not that stupid.
I’m pretty sure.
Because if I look hard enough I can find the asshole in any libertarian. It’s pretty easy to find the asshole in most republicans and it’s a regular walk in the park with just about every Christian I’ve met lately. I know how tired it sounds but I’m completely serious when I say it really is the old fashioned magnifying glass of logic and truth. I swear it works. Christians will say the exact same thing and then challenge you to disprove the existence of their adult version of Santa out of a thousand other versions for the exact same reason the other religions do. Most republicans are arrogant and hypocritical so there’s your Christianity connection right there. And most libertarians, although there are quite a few atheists, are really just particularly narcissistic, selfish republicans.
One thing is for sure. Sooner or later, any one of the above will utter some version of “Obama’s Kenyan socialist/communist policies are sinking this once proud Christian nation”.
So you see what I mean now.
It’s just so cheap and intellectually lazy. Fifty year old cliches that still pack a punch for the elderly, fanatical and racists old and new.
That racist thing, with all the other brackish deception, just gets to be too much for me. It’s too too toxic. Too wrong. Too bullshit. No reason on top of no reason with all that conviction and absolute certainty. Before I know it, I’m actually arguing about dinosaurs cavorting with children and Obama’s fucking birth certificate.
A couple of these people have fooled me lately while on my way to believing they were good people. This is where I need an instrument. A device. A tricorder or some damn thing. They actually fooled me with the Christian shit. They get all pious on you and assure you they don’t judge. Before I knew it I was having conversations with them about music and food and sometimes even politics.
Next they say some thing or another and my neck hair starts looking for a breakfast broadcast. As soon as they can’t defend the socialist/communism thing, they move to insisting the unbelievable amount of racist vitriol howitzered at Obama never happened.
They’re not convinced he’s a citizen.
Then they tell me all those young black men were thugs.
That’s the dirty bomb.
It’s true I’ve got a stake in it but that shouldn’t matter. I tilt on my axis and my parasites are spilled into the ether because of the gravitational disruption around my equator. All my markets crash. Somewhere in there I want get drunk and beat somebody up and puke in the sink.
It’s like they’re terrorists. If you go on the offensive at all they get ever more self righteous and obstreperous. They actually tell you about what the look on your face will be when God comes. They share made up anecdotes about stereotypical minorities. They bond among themselves. They WILL lie to you. They flaunt it with all the pompous audacity of a child convinced that the cookie is bigger by breaking it in to pieces.
I just can’t do that any more.
So I’ve decided that if I am that stupid, I don’t want to know. I want to be like them and have the courage of my convictions no matter what. If I am that tragically vain, I won’t be able to bear it. If I have anything in common with them, there it is.
I’ve decided that I have a finite amount of time and I need to allot that time more wisely.
I need to be among my people.
Drinks for my friends.
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Unfortunately, reasoned discussion and rational debate have become insurmountable challenges to too many these days, even among the more worldly and well-educated. It’s no longer worth the effort, imho, to attempt discussing policies and politics, the state of our nation or current trends and events with the Religious Right, racist misogynists when their own informational reference sources are essentially limited to two unreliable sources: (1) scripts they’ve been read by reasonably-attractive, paid actors on a TV cable entertainment network widely reputed to be based in bias and deception; and (2) a heavily-edited, 2,000 year old book originally written by uneducated people who integrated slavery, animal sacrifice, incest and rape into their daily lives.
With more independent sources of information available than ever before – literally at our fingertips – opposing viewpoints are perceived only as threats to be pummelled, assaults to their comfy status quo of blaming others, rather than opportunities for potential personal growth.
R.I.P., Logic, recognition the acknowledgement and acceptance of Facts, and the atypical commodity of ‘Common’ Sense. The GOP and their right arm, Fox, drove stakes through their hearts.
And mine, too. I can’t recall another time I’ve been so disappointed in Americans.
Discussion with the Fox cult members is like standing together, talking in the middle of a staircase. Then, once the general topics become specific, the person can’t produce a substantiable reference to support their claims. Not one. The next step is invariably downward – to step down to name-calling, then down to character assassination and so on. Anything to distract both of us from the truth that so very many of their heartfelt beliefs are unfounded in any fact whatsoever. Because going down the steps is so much easier than expending the effort to move up and forward…to listen, to research and to learn. And if any concession was made by them, if they ever admitted that the stair they’re occupying is shaky and unsupported, their whole stairway just might collapse onto itself.
The key to self-preservation is to not let them grab hold of you.
Great observations, G.a!
And thank you for another perfectly-stated point, Michael!
“No reason on top of no reason with all that conviction and absolute certainty.”
I know that the thousands of words I have written in rebuttal to all the things you mention above have absolutely been a waste of time and effort. I also get enraged with the Kenyan/Socialist/blah, blah, blah crap. I mostly get enraged when someone says, “it’s not a racial issue.” Of course it’s a racial issue. It is especially a racial issue with someone who says it isn’t.
I’m stupid just for thinking I could change someone’s mind with facts. Instead, I’ve learned that “facts” are not the same for everyone. They know what they know–Fox tells them every day–and those are their “facts”.
Christians are always right because they have God on their side. In the middle of an argument, they’ll go all holy on you and start spouting bible verses. Then they’ll give you their blessing to prove they are Christian before telling you how you’ll burn in hell for eternity.
Yes, I give up, too. I can’t do it anymore (although I probably will). The only thing holding this country together is jingoism and patriotic songs. In reality, we all hate each other. We are a people filled with hate, and I count myself among those people. I wouldn’t have said that before 2008. I was a different person then. I never could have imagined the things that have happened in the years since. I am so disgusted and dismayed and dejected. The only thing left to do is detach because all this hate is going to kill me. Does that mean they win?
This little light of mine: I’m going to let it shine…
Just wait, the misogyny is already beginning with Hillary running, not that the Republicans haven’t shown that before. Bush’s idea that sexually active women should be shamed (without mentioning that there was a man involved) qualifies too.
The truth is that the polls show that issues of the left are favored by a large percentage of voters. but the Republicans vote and the Dems don’t that much.
We need to run on issues this time.
But for the mean old men and their sexist friends, it will be more of the same with just the word for their prejudice changing from racism to misogyny. And most of them won’t know what the hell that word means!
Under the cover of the tragedy in South Carolina, the TPP is quietly passing through the congress today. And with it the last of our sovereignty bleeds away. JFK once said that when peaceful change becomes inevitable, violent revolt becomes inevitable. I don’t think that even the most sane and rational among us are going to be able to accurately judge the scope and scale of the fight that we are soon to find ourselves in the middle of. This shit really makes me thankful that I never had children.
I will pray for you Douglass. But first I will try to determine what or who is listening to these prayers. Then I will try to decipher what deity to aim this spiritual outpouring at. At that point I will fall down on my face (or knees) in the most appropriate phen shui of religion posture I can muster and realize you, my suddenly intellectual pacifist friend, are Fucked.
Praise……ummmm….Something.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw
Excellent, as usual. As are the comments that follow.
I am beyond heartbrokdie. I am so discouraged by what our country has become, by what I see evolving, I have lost hope.
I fully believe there will be violence, on a large scale before I die.
I got where you did long ago. Time after time they would unhood themselves, defending the unfathomable or smirking where outrage belonged. I have come to the belief that the only way to counter them is to double, nay triple and quadruple, our own sunshine. They are not going away but they can be silenced by the light of goodness.
Right there with you … I am stupid … and I’m gonna stay that way, no matter what … you are a phenomenal writer … please keep speaking your truth … thank you …
I will just invoke Descartes’ logic here: you know you’re not a dumbass for the same reason that Descartes knew that he existed at all… you can rationally think through things, thus you must exist (and also be rational).
“Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon will strut all over the place, shit on the board, knock all the pieces over, and loudly proclaim itself the winner.” Don’t bother.
Once again you put your finger directly on the outrage of thinking persons. Something that thinking persons, for the most part, have been trained never to do. It would be getting our hands dirty, sinking to their level, playing their game. Never for a moment did any consider that it might be fighting fire with fire…or that it might be time to.
Awesome, as always!!!!