Sigh
I’m generally a pretty easy-going guy who tries not to get overly exercised at people’s ignorance and stupidity. “Live and let live,” that’s my motto, especially if those other livers are living somewhere far enough away that I don’t have to engage with them, say like Murfreesboro, Tennessee or Temucula, California.
But I’m just about ready to burst and go all postal-meets-Mel-Gibson on the small-minded (and no doubt among the males, punily-endowed) citizens of those two locales who have nothing better to do with their miserable excuse for lives than to protest plans to open and/or construct mosques in their communities.
Don’t these fools realize that their jingoistic intolerance in the name of “American values” represents a direct attack on the very values upon which our country was founded?
“Hey! Let’s be intolerant in the name of a nation based on religious tolerance! Then, we can drive our SUVs around to save gas and dine at the all-you-can-eat buffet at Chili’s to lose weight!”
“Grrr”, I say; “Grrr.”
I know I should try to put myself in those people’s shoes—although no doubt many of them are (shudder) Crocs or something even worse from the sale shelf at Wal-Mart—but it would take too many years of huffing glue to get myself into a mindset where I might find their ideas compelling.
I’m sure many of them are perfectly nice people who may have even stopped beating their children by now, but the effort required to seriously consider their misguided position is frankly beyond me; I’d rather get in a discussion with a meth-head over whether bicycle helmets should be worn for all the intellectual challenge it would offer.
The Times quotes this grandmother who is worried that “we” will be taken over by Islam in the next 20 years; as a “mother and grandmother” she’s worried; my conjecture is that she wouldn’t be nearly as worried if she weren’t mother and grandmother to the same person.
But I’m just about ready to burst and go all postal-meets-Mel-Gibson on the small-minded (and no doubt among the males, punily-endowed) citizens of those two locales who have nothing better to do with their miserable excuse for lives than to protest plans to open and/or construct mosques in their communities.
Don’t these fools realize that their jingoistic intolerance in the name of “American values” represents a direct attack on the very values upon which our country was founded?
“Hey! Let’s be intolerant in the name of a nation based on religious tolerance! Then, we can drive our SUVs around to save gas and dine at the all-you-can-eat buffet at Chili’s to lose weight!”
“Grrr”, I say; “Grrr.”
I know I should try to put myself in those people’s shoes—although no doubt many of them are (shudder) Crocs or something even worse from the sale shelf at Wal-Mart—but it would take too many years of huffing glue to get myself into a mindset where I might find their ideas compelling.
I’m sure many of them are perfectly nice people who may have even stopped beating their children by now, but the effort required to seriously consider their misguided position is frankly beyond me; I’d rather get in a discussion with a meth-head over whether bicycle helmets should be worn for all the intellectual challenge it would offer.
The Times quotes this grandmother who is worried that “we” will be taken over by Islam in the next 20 years; as a “mother and grandmother” she’s worried; my conjecture is that she wouldn’t be nearly as worried if she weren’t mother and grandmother to the same person.
posted by Professor Dave at 11:24 AM
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