RARE RANT - Deal with you whiny bunch of cry baby super sensitive turd hounds!

[Yaddo 42]

Dean, can I move Down Under until things blow over here in the US? Might take a while.

Oppress Christianity? Look how rare and hard it is to get elected to political office in the US, especially beyond the local level, unless you profess to being a Christian or Jewish.

No wishing "Merry Christmas" at the stores? Tempest in a teapot. Fox News tried to whip this up into a national scourge at the same time they were selling "Happy Holidays" ornaments on their own website. I don't really care what anyone wishes me at the store, I'd wish 'em back "Messy Kweznuz" if I didn't have to explain the reference every time. 

Pick your God? I'm an atheist, I choose not to pick among a group of choices I consider imaginary anyway. Personally don't care if "In God We Trust" is on the money, look at the "Illuminati" symbol on the back of the one dollar bill. Conflicting message, IMO. Besides everything's going to plastic and electronic transfers, unless those words are encoded in binary in every transaction, then I got a problem with it.

I would like it if "under God" were take back out of the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's just me. It was added to somehow set us apart from those godless evil commies, back in the good ole days when there were only two sides to the global conflict (italics added to emphasize the sarcasm). When I say the Pledge I omit that part, so what, there's plenty of idiots who say that part louder. Maybe it's a political and religious solidarity statement, IMO it's just rude. "Under Gilgamesh" or "under Ziggy" or "under Kilroy" would mean as much to me.

Freedom of religion includes the freedom not to have a religion. Do I begrudge people their beliefs, no, as long as they aren't trying to coerce me to accept those beliefs or to expect to be treated like a second class citizen for not being one of them. I'm from the state Roy Moore made his rep in, religious displays in courthouses, govt. buildings, etc. make me wonder if justice will be applied equally to those of us who believe other than what the majority do. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular opinions and beliefs.

Strange that much of the religious majority feels oppressed when they held control of two of three branches of the federal govt. for six years and could write the laws the way they want to prevent said oppression. They had their chance if it was so bad. Please don't bring up "activist judges". Just like whose ox is gored, they're only "activist" to whichever side doesn't like the ruling, right or left.

I could almost sympathize with the anti-PC people, I hate restrictions on language among civil adults. But I've seen too many closed minded morons run their mouths about anyone different than themselves just because they could. This includes family members and people I considered friends.

And I thought everyone knew the comeback to "Do fries come with that shake?" is "Shake like that don't need fries."

[CheezeFlixz]

Yaddo
The point I trying to make is that its political correctness run amuck. Change in many cases is good, but when you go try to change traditional values (Values based on a majority opinion) and event for the sake of a few over the many then you need to step back and re-evaluate the situation. Everyones religious beliefs or no religious beliefs should be respected. In my kids school it is 99% Christian, there are 2 Buddhist and 1 Jewish child. Out of respect they have event and displays for those religions represented in the school, I know of no one that gets torn up about it. But some groups in the nation want to band all displays. When as far as I know they don't hurt anyone. It's just them trying to force their fringe minority belief on the majority by avenues of legal process. It would seems to me that representing all beliefs for those that have them would promote better understanding of the other.

And "Messy Kweznuz" is from Blackadder and I doubt many here would get it either. Kinda like Rama-Hana-Kwan-Mas.

[Zapranoth]

There's something oddly hypnotic about Uma there doin' the Twist.

Now, Uma there, I mean MissusMiaWallace, she'd just snort a line and forget all that s**t yo talkin' 'bout theah...

I think the only answer to the discrimination, reverse discrimination, etc is for each of us to just be what we are and to try to let go of our unreasoned reactions.  I'm a straight white thirtysomething Norwegian-ancestry male, and I look like it.  I'm tall, so white as to be translucent, blue-eyed.  I have a very large amount of higher education and I'm successful in my career.  I'm Christian.    If someone has a bone to pick with me that's fine.  If someone is behaving stupidly/self-destructively (as I often get to confront in my work) I try to just call it what it is, coming from a position of concern.   How a person reacts to that is beyond my control.

Maybe you ought to turn the TV off, Cheeze.  Watch less news.  Throw the effin' newspaper away and cancel your subscription.  Turn the spam filter waaaaaay up, and exercise more?  (I don't mean this critically.  I quit watching the news.  I skim the news on the net, and some articles I just don't read on some days.  Why read about another child murder?  How is that going to make me a better person today?)

[CheezeFlixz]

I took the RED pill, I'll leave the BLUE one for somebody else.

[RCMerchant]

Take it easy....life is waaaay too short to sweat the bulls**t. Even stoopid f2cking redneck russian fishermen ain't gonna p**s me off forever. I got to much life to enjoy left,to waste it wishing somebody would CUT UP THOSE BACKWOOD f**kS AND DISSECT THEM,JUST TO TRY AND FATHOM HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY<THEY COULD HAVE BEEN SO RETARTED TO EAT THAT f**kING FISH!Or else you'll go nuts,and pull a Charlie.
Sigh...Charles Fort is rolling in his grave....

[Yaddo 42]

Cheeze, I can see your point, but cultures and values change over time anyway, even without the efforts of the Michael Newdows and such of the world. I'm still trying to figure out when kids started getting Easter presents beyond new dress clothes and egg hunting gear. That seems to be a recent development, wonder where that will be in 20 years? And that's just some mild pointless stuff.

When I hear some people invoke traditional values, I wonder how far back do they want to go. Miscegenation laws? Anti-sodomy laws? "No Irish need apply?" Only land owners and white males can vote or hold office? I'm citing extreme and awful examples that I don't think you actually mean, but how traditional do we go? These were the norm not too long ago in some cases, some of the laws are still technically on the books in some states even if not applied.

I agree that there can be a tendency for some people to invoke ideas that amount to little more than, "I deserve special treatment because I'm (fill in a trait here)" or "blame the man/whitey". The first view is stupid to me, if everyone is special, then "special" and "unique" are meaningless. I believe in leveling the playing field, but not to the point that merit counts for nothing. I'd prefer we all be treated as individuals, regardless of race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, whatever; but we humans do group ourselves to the exclusion of others (and there are always "others"). But I ain't gonna hold my breath waiting for it all to change to the way I want it.

As for the other statement, my mother's family didn't come to America until the 1940s and were poor and excluded early on themselves, so I ask them does that mean I get a half pass on white guilt? We can't undo what was done to people in the past, but some people always need an enemy or oppressor whether there is one or not. Just the same thing as grouping ourselves into "us and them". It's never that simple, no matter who does the grouping.

I agree with the suggestions to avoid some news sources or being more selective. There's a lot of stuff that can get you worked up without even realizing it. I rip into myself for listening to talk radio lately. While I can see how they feel they are getting out info that they say the "liberal mainstream media" are ignoring because of an agenda, and part of that is true. Bias is always a factor in any newsgathering or reporting.

But those guys are professional outrage merchants, they have agendas as well, and not just the political one. They make their money getting people p**sed off. If they can't find an outrage legitimately, or if the old button pushing isn't working due to burn out, they'll create one. They have to fill airtime and get those ratings one way or another. If say Sean Hannity is so concerned about the issues he cares about, why break in to announce Anna Nicole Smith's death. Newswise, it's as fluffy and tabloid as this stupid astronaut story. It's a distraction from real issues just like the PC posturing you are opposed to.

[CheezeFlixz]

When I hear some people invoke traditional values, I wonder how far back do they want to go. Miscegenation laws? Anti-sodomy laws? "No Irish need apply?" Only land owners and white males can vote or hold office? I'm citing extreme and awful examples that I don't think you actually mean, but how traditional do we go? These were the norm not too long ago in some cases, some of the laws are still technically on the books in some states even if not applied.

As I've stated prior traditional values are based on a majority opinion at the time, with time those values can and will change. (I'm not talking about knee-jerk at the time, but stable day to day opinion.) But I base traditional values on the consensus, are all of my values traditional? NO! In some areas I'm a progressive liberal, in others I'm conservative. Traditional values seem to fall somewhere in the middle.

As far as news goes, seems I'm being Pigeon holed a bit here. People like Hannity get on my nerves as they are so far right, so right in their own mind and just plain annoying. I've been accused of "Rush-ism" in this thread and as far as I know I don't even get his show around here, infact there are many times I'm in remote areas of were I live and I can't pick up any radio at all, so I'm at a loss to what they might be. O'Rielly a bit to smug for me along with a number of others on either the right or left and many foreign media outlets are so anti-American (or come across that way) you have to take what they say with a block of salt. There seem to be no middle ground anymore, you have to be labled as in one camp or the other and that's not always true.

You know, I might be independently opinionated complete with original thoughts and without the aid of over the air, print media or talking heads. I'm not setting around surrounded in newspapers with FNC booming away nor am I painting up protest signs while watching CNN. Both of them have there own agenda in my thoughts and opt not to take the middle ground as a non-bias news outlet (not that they ever could), they are both highly bias along with the number of lesser known news channels. It would be nice if they could just report the news with all of the commentary and agenda driven slants.

In my opinion, and it's just that an opinion the only way you are going to get even in the remote area of the truth is to take what the left has to say and take what the right has to say, put it in a pot mix it up and filter out the BS then maybe you might be in the remote area of the facts, but I doubt it.

[Yaddo 42]

Fair enough. Sorry if I mischaracterized you, but much of what you wrote reminded me of people I know in real life who are of that political bent and only get their news from sources they agree with. Your take on the news at the bottom of your post isn't too far from what I try to do myself. I just had to ditch many news sources due to an overload of stuff that I knew wasn't informing me or particularly useful, I need to do it again actually. That's why I'm trying to stay away from the Anna Nicole Smith and Astronaut topics on here. I'm sick of that stuff as it is, and resent the news outlets for wasting our time with it.

I'm unhappy with my posts in this topic for various reasons, and don't feel like making the effort to try to salvage things by continuing with it. So I'm withdrawing from it and won't post in it or read it after this.

See you elsewhere on the forum, Cheezeflixz.

[Ash]

I'm unhappy with my posts in this topic for various reasons,

The Delete or Remove Topic buttons can work wonders.
Believe me...I know.