It Ain't Necessarily So

Tonight was movie night. I have a backlog of movies to watch, some from last Christmas that I still haven't seen. Some that I haven't found since moving. And then there are things I see so cheaply available that I'll pry my wallet open and buy. So it was with Russell Brand in "Arthur" with Helen Mirren as John Gielgud. It's no great art film, breaks no barriers, makes no allegorical or political statement. It's just sweet. No, it's not Dudley Moore, it's Russell Brand and this is 35 years later, in the year 2011 CE. I rather liked it. A nice little comedy, and everyone does a good job. Is there something wrong with that? Oh, right, I should be watching something meaningful. Balls to that!

When the hell did things become so damn tight assed? These days everything is snubbed by somebody or other. I feel like I've just woken up from a coma (well, that's 4 years of opiates for you) and everyone's gone nuts. People spend hours upon hours arguing over meaningless nonsense online, even invent other sock puppets to argue with themselves in public- how crazy is that? And there's this huge pressure to define yourself- are you a Christian? Are you a Liberal? Are you a vegetarian? Do you smoke? And behind all these definitions are adjectives for everyone; who you are is soneone else's construct. And then the final judgment. You're either good or bad. You are acceptable or to be shot. This has become such a black & white, Us vs. Them society in the past few years that I hardly recognize my own country. It's malodorous prejudice in all its encapsulating glory. I swear we're rowing backwards in time. We're nearly at pre-All In The Family levels of bigotry.

Except now there are new acceptable prejudices. And there's a reason behind them, just like there always were. Here's a partial list (in no particular order) of the "New Niggers of 2011"

Smokers
Fat People
Skinny People
Catholics
Muslims
White People
Arabic People
Right wingers
Left wingers
Poor People
Sick People
Educated People
Uneducated People
Meat Eaters
Gun Owners

But these are the currently-sanctioned hatreds.

Just add the old-fashioned but still alive hatreds of
Jews
Blacks
Latins
Homosexuals
Non-English Speakers
Women
Any Non-Christian

And we've got a really wonderful community, eh?

It's really time we look at what's going on among us and stop behaving like children. Did you ever see the smart kid in the family set up a fight so they could get a big piece of dessert or run off to watch TV while everyone was having at each other?

Nobody, nobody is ever all one thing or another. I'm very Liberal in societal views and personally pretty conservative when it comes to money. You can't paint a person in all one color, because it's not true rendering. We're all fighting our own wars through life, why do we make it worse by alienating each other?