Shut the Hell Up

The title of today's blog entry is "Shut the hell up," and it is reflective of the way I feel today. Fear not, my little droogies - I'll soon be back to my chipper self. But I've got to vent a little on y'all, so please don't take what I'm about to say too seriously...

To all you smug and smarmy conservatives - shut the hell up. Your simplistic world-view makes me tense, and your fear of the unknown makes me sad. President Bush is not an idiot, but neither is he the friend of the citizens of the US. He's going to destroy our liberties in some insane power-grab, and y'all are lining up behind him with grins on your faces as you cheerfully shred the Constitution in your zeal to catch them bad ol' terrorists. Thanks for wanting to protect America, now stop trying to do it by repressing our own freedoms.

To all you bleating, whining liberals - shut the hell up. Your shrill insistances are giving me a headache, and your blatant ignorance of the facts makes me want to throttle you. President Bush is a dangerous man, on that we agree - but he is the legitimately-elected US President; neither did he 'steal' any elections - the legal process was observed - you just don't like the results - too bad for you, get over it and get over yourselves.

And to all those who make sweeping generalities and the proceed with their rant as if it were true (including mine); shut the hell up. I'm sick to death of reading the following:

1) Anti-catholic statements that begin from the assumption that the Pope claims to be infallible or similar nonsense, and then jump off from there.

2) Gay Rights activists who paint the rest of the world as 'anti-gay' if we are not liberal crybabies like themselves.

3) Anyone who points to another group (religion, culture, skin color) and claims that the reason their own lives are miserable is because of "them."

4) Anyone who presumes I'm a racist if I don't agree with their point of view AND I am not the same skin color as they are.

I'm a member of the public who represents himself as what he is - a walking collection of often-contradictory beliefs - somewhat open-minded, willing to be swayed by logic and circumstances, aware that I have my own pet prejudices and beliefs that I can't explain or defend on a logical basis. That makes me a failure as an 'ism' and makes me a friend of no single pack of idiots with an axe to grind.

I call myself a 'conservative' because I find myself most often believing in the correctness of conservative opinion regarding economic policies, judicial interpretation of laws, our relations with other nations, and preservation of rights such as private gun ownership.

I am 'liberal' on some few matters - mostly those involving freedoms of speech, religion, and the general 'pursuit of happiness' as it involves issues like the rights of gays.

But I have to endure the conservatives referring to the liberals as all being anti-religious, pro-abortion, pro-gay-agenda, and so on. I have to endure the liberals constantly making asinine statements about what conservatives believe. Each side being earnest and each side being as close-minded as they accuse the other side of being, and each side being dead wrong.

And I'm tired of my gay friends insisting that I have to agree that it is 'good' to be gay, or that I must agree that they should have special laws to protect their right to be openly gay and legally protected from discrimination of any kind, and that I must agree that gay adoption is a fine thing, and so on.

Look, my cheerful friends. I like you just fine, and I love a few of you. You're my friends, and in some cases, my relatives. I'm comfortable with who you are, I'm not afraid of you, and I don't hold to any notion that you could 'change if you wanted to'. I don't think I can 'catch' being gay from being around you, I don't mind gay-oriented themes on television, and I don't think that gay people try to 'recruit' others to become gay. I don't think you're going to Hell, and I think society in general should treat you like any other citizen.

But I am against the government granting special protected status to anyone - and that includes gays. I am against gay marriage, because my religion forbids it - but I also think that the government should butt out, because it is no more my business whom you marry than it is theirs. I have my belief, but that's all it is - just an opinion. I don't insist anyone live that way. Yes, if you ask, I think gay sex is a sin. Just as much of a sin as sex outside of marriage, masturbation, and whatever else you kinky things get up to late at night. Again, I don't think it is any of my business what you do, and I think it is between you and your Creator to figure out for yourselves. I don't judge you - but I do have an opinion. I'll keep it to myself unless asked - but I expect you to honor my right to have an opinion that may not make you happy. So shut the hell up.

No, I don't think that society is going to hell in a handcart because of gays in society. Or television. Or movies. Or pornography. Or liberals. Or...you name it. And yes, I understand that the "Ozzie and Harriet" society we believed existed in the 1950's was never really any such thing.

But I do believe that our society is changing, and not for the better. I do believe (in the fiction, if you like) that a family is best served by maintaining the traditional organization of a man and a wife, a couple of kids and a dog, a station-wagon and a little rubber pool in the backyard for the kids to wade in. Sorry that doesn't serve your agenda. Sorry it never really existed anyway. Sorry I was raised to believe in a lie. It's *my* lie and I like it and that's what I want for MY life. Tell you what - I won't tell you that you can't live with three gay Romanian acrobats and a perverted horse, and you don't tell me that I can't have a house in the 'burbs with tulips pushing up through the sod in the springtime. We're both freaks - but I'm the more tolerant one. So shut the hell up.

Very few of us are 'isms'. Most of us hold viewpoints that cross political and religious boundaries. So you can't really say "Those XXX, they want to take away our right to YYY, and they all believe ZZZ." No matter what you fill in the blanks with, your statement is false on its face. When you say that, well, you're an idiot. So shut the hell up.

Anyway, I'm winding down now. I feel a little better. Just people, please...don't assume that anyone who belongs to a different political party or religion or whatever than you do must therefore have certain negative characteristics. I've even done it myself in this post - referring to liberals as whining crybabies and conservatives as smug and smarmy. While true in a very abstract way, it doesn't really apply to any single person. So I'm going to shut the hell up.

Keep Grinning,

Wiggy