first of three

trying to offend some people is like trying to make them breathe.

i came across this thought a couple years ago when i first read the redneck manifesto by jim goad. the context of that line was a chapter about political correctness and the white liberals who held so tightly to ideals of sensitivity and tolerance and the like. the idea was that nobody had to try at all to do something that would outrage such people, that there was so much in the world that, in their view, was terrible and unaccepctable they simply woke up every morning offended and outraged.

so our friend goad was definitely right about the liberals, especially since, beyond the fantasy many of them harbor of belonging to some oppressed group of people, they don't really have any reason to be so pissed off. it would almost seem as though among white liberals, there is an inverse relationship between actual level of oppression to level of affluence, but that i s'pose is fodder for another entry on another day.

what he didn't address, at least not right then, was the level of whininess of those on the "opposite" end of our culture's perceived ideological continuum. now there's no doubt that the conservatives at least have a better reason than the liberals to be irritated. the stuff they're upset about is stuff that's of at least some level of personal concern, stuff like what their kids see on tv and learn at school, stuff reasonable parents should care about anyhow, but then you see how some folks react to the supreme court's decision regarding the challenge of the pledge of allegiance.

you're likely familiar with at least the gist of the story, a california atheist hears that his daughter's class at school daily recites the pledge of allegiance and subequently decides that this means that atheists are a threatened minority and that he'd better sue to get the words "under God" removed from it, ostensibly for the benefit of his daughter (of whom his wife, not he, has exclusive custody, a detail that would later prove significant), but more likely to project himself as a member of a victimized minority group, because face it how many victimized minority groups do white guys with medical and law degrees get to be a part of? the man presses his case, wins in the 9th circuit, a bench most sympathetic to his plight, and "under God" is removed from the pledge in all schools under that court's jurisdiction.

what we find is that regardless of how ideologically divergent people claim to be, they're really not all that different.

feeling: duped
thinking of: my younger days
music: "study humans" MxPx