Why Can’t We Communicate?








I’m Offended!!!!

I want to talk about the disturbing trend lately of being offended. Well, not so much the being offended, but trying to outlaw offensiveness. Whether we are talking about the confederate flag, words, a football team name or mascot, someone’s political views, religious views, lifestyle choices, comedy, or anything else people are being offended by this week. It’s all nonsense. All of it. I guess I’ll use the rest of this blog explaining why, although I wish I could just stop right here.

First of all, there are tons of things that are offensive. Too many to list. There are words I won’t say, and there are offensive words I love to say. People are social creatures and like to make each other laugh. They like to make fun of each other. People like to point out faults in a comical way. People can be mean. I don’t think this will ever change. The easy targets, or low hanging fruit, if you will are: looks, intelligence, attitude and physical ability. So we call each other “retarded”, “gay”, and any of countless other, more creative ways of saying the same thing. I know several people with children on the autism spectrum and can certainly understand how referring to someone as “retarded” would make them angry. But here’s the thing, before the word retarded was used, the technical terms for the different levels of low IQ were idiot, moron and imbecile. The word “retarded” was created as a way to replace those words as they became known as derogatory terms. Now “retarded” is derogatory and we can’t use that. Guess what, whatever replaces “retarded” will soon be used to call people stupid and will then need to be changed. It all means the same thing. It’s a never ending cycle!

By all means be offended, nobody can take that away from you. Just realize that whatever you change the word to, it will also be used in a way that is offensive. Instead of trying to change the language, try creating an argument that would persuade people to be nicer to each other. Better yet, understand that when you hear one person call another one “retarded”, they are not making fun of your child or mentally disabled people in general. A literal comparison is not being made. If I were to call someone a “scumbag” or “douche”, I’m just calling them a jerk in a slightly more creative way. There is no literal connection between jerky behavior and used condoms or vagina cleaner. When the vast majority of people call other people “retarded”, there is no literal connection between the victim of the insult and mentally handicapped people, in their minds. The few for which there is a connection are scumbags. (See what I did there?)

The other currently trendy way to be offended is through symbolism. Specifically in the news right now is the confederate flag. Ever since a racist, white moron shot up a black church, and we found out he loved the confederate flag, there has been a concerted effort to eradicate that flag from human existence. This is the same flag that previously represented southern pride, or pride in being from the south. It was proudly worn by white people and black people alike. Sure, it was one of the flags of the south during the civil war. Yes, the south had slaves. Yes, at one point the confederate flag represented a system that endorsed slavery. I live in the south. My relatives, for the most part live in Georgia. You can’t get more southern that that. I have met many a racist in Georgia and not one of them would advocate for the return of slavery. The meaning of the flag has changed over time. What I believe the racist moron who killed those people, and the people I hear making racist comments when visiting family in Georgia mostly complain about is the perceived preferential treatment for black people over white people by the government. What the flag means to these people is a solidarity against northern aggression, (Washington, DC). In and of itself, this is not racist. Their racism is a completely separate issue. While their logic is maddening to say the least, it’s not the flags fault.

Again, eradicating the confederate flag from Amazon.com, Walmart and the television will not take away the history of the civil war. It will not end racism. It will not even change the attitude of racist people. If anything, it will make it worse. The civil war was a real thing that really happened. The other thing is that it’s a slippery slope when you cave in to mindless, mob mentality, pop culture rage protesters. There are very few flags or symbols that don’t offend someone. How can Walmart sell Che Guevara t-shirts, but not confederate flag t-shirts? He was a sociopathic killer and communist revolutionary! How can you want to eradicate Chic Fil A from existence for supporting traditional marriage, but freely fill up your tank with gasoline made in Saudi Arabia where being homosexual is illegal?

There are tons of arguments against the banning of books, symbols, words, etc… They are all good arguments, but apparently they are not working. We are raising a generation of people who are perpetually offended. My guess is that this mentality is mostly coming from college campuses where social justice warriors are castrating the minds of young people. When these young people graduate and enter the real world, they are not prepared for what they see. Catering to the mild sensibilities of these people is enabling in a way that is not only harmful to their perception of the real world, but dangerous to our freedom. These young people will be the next generation of elected officials. They will be in a position to make laws. They will be in a position to redefine what free speech is. If we let them define the terms of our language now through private means like social media, is it a stretch to think they won’t define those terms through legal means later?

At any rate, supporting free speech means defending offensive behavior, but not necessarily agreeing with that behavior. I firmly believe that words and symbols only hold the power that we give them. Please give me your best offensive term in the comments below so that we can laugh at them and remove some of their power.

Social Justice Warriors Are Killing the World

This week’s blog is an extension of last week’s blog. It was brought to my attention that my blog last week on feminism could apply to almost every special rights group, and they were right. Who and what are special rights groups? They generally fall into 3 main categories: women’s rights, minority rights and gay rights groups. However each main group may have their own set of sub-group, For instance, the body image group is a subset of feminism. They specialize in trying to get photo-shopped models off the cover of magazines because it may make an overweight girl feel bad. These people are generally called social justice warriors (SJW’s) and are basically just professional victims.

As far as I can tell, there is no widely accepted definition of the SJW movement. Generally, it is based in cultural Marxism that sees built-in inequality in the western culture based on things like race, gender, religion and sexual orientation and seek to make every group equal no matter what. To a SJW, some people have a natural advantage in any given culture. Because men, and white/European men in particular, have built and run the world for the vast majority of human existence, they are at the top of the cultural food chain and therefore “privileged”. Thus, a hierarchy of human existence is born. The goal of cultural Marxism and the SJW movement is to eliminate this hierarchy so that everyone is on a level playing field. To a SJW, any group above any other group needs to be attacked and brought down a few pegs to achieve an equality of outcome. It is easy to see then, that white males are the main target of their hate. Any group that does not cater to the wants and desires of a group lower on the hierarchy is a target for destruction.

The ultimate goal of the SJW movement is to quell any humor, speech or actions deemed to be offensive (by any SJW) from a group that is higher in hierarchy directed towards a group lower on the hierarchy. This makes for some interesting battles sometimes. This is also why it is deemed to be ok for a member of a minority to say something that would be considered racist if said by a white male. It’s not labelled offensive for instance if a Latino comedian uses typical white stereotypes to make fun of white people in a joke because they are lower on the cultural scale and therefore have less “privilege”. It gets interesting when the gap in hierarchy is smaller, such as the case between slim women and overweight women. Both groups would be low on the hierarchy, but thin women would be slightly higher and therefore an acceptable target from the pro-plus-sized women group. You see this in action on your Facebook with meme’s that say things like, “only dogs like bones”, with a picture of a slim woman. Another popular meme says, “Real men like curves” with a picture of an attractive plus-sized woman. Once only plus-sized women are on all the covers of magazines the term plus-sized is no longer acceptable and some other less offensive term will be invented.

So how does all of this work in the real world? What’s so bad about wanting equality? In order to answer these questions, let’s look at each category of SJW group briefly, excluding women’s rights since I used the above example and wrote about modern feminism last week.

The largest network of SJW groups would be minority rights groups. There are probably dozens or possibly hundreds of sub-groups for every race/nationality on the planet. The point of this group is not to build up minorities to better achieve the life goals of the individual members of that group, rather to destroy and bring down the groups that would be considered higher on the cultural scale. In America, you can see this in action in the outrage over white police officers killing black people. To be sure, police killing any innocent person is a tragedy, but to the SJW what matters is that not enough white people are getting killed by cops. This is the fallacy of the SJW movement. Facts, science, logic and reason don’t matter. Arguments like twice as many white people are killed by police than black people don’t matter. What matters is feelings and pop culture trends. What matters is the color of the person, not the argument or idea that is offered. The exact opposite of what Martin Luther King Jr. preached. Minorities of all nationalities, you have value outside your skin color. You control your own destiny, no matter what they tell you. If someone doesn’t like you because of your skin color, screw them and succeed anyway.

The other major category of SJW is the gay rights groups. There are several sub-groups in this category. Each letter in the LBGTIAQ (sorry if I missed any letters), could be considered a sub-group. The target of gay rights right now seems to be religious groups, especially Christian ones. I am guessing from the media coverage that conservative religious groups are higher on the “privilege” scale because they are all about forcing religious business owners to cater to their every whim. Because the gay people are lower on the hierarchy their rights supersede the religious rights of business owners. Truly, I cannot think of anything more demeaning to a person than being reduced to a letter in a long incoherent string of letters. How dismissive is that of an individual’s personal experience, existence, opinions. Gay people of all stripes, you have value outside your sexual orientation. You are not just a letter. If someone hates you for who you love, screw them and succeed anyway.

The SJW movement is killing the world because it is propelling political correctness to dangerous levels. They are killing free speech on college campuses, and in the media. They are killing social media, where they for the most part live. They use social media to ruin the lives of dissenters, by doxing individuals in order to threaten their employers into firing the dissenter. They use twitter, Instagram, tumbler, Facebook and youtube like a SWAT team uses a sniper rifle. They have propelled being a victim to rock star status. If you are not a victim, you are a misogynist, sexist, bigoted, member of the patriarchy. When your goal is to tear down instead of build up, you are doing it wrong. When you can no longer speak your mind on a college campus something is wrong. Eventually, normal people will stop using social media. Sjw’s see capitalism as the enemy because is based in the patriarchy created by white/European males and needs to be destroyed. They have no facts, no logic and no reason. Science is not on their side.

When I got my white privilege certificate in the mail, it came with a secret decoder ring. We white males get secret updates on a regular basis and are prohibited by the patriarchy to discuss the contents of those secret documents. I am going to spill some of the beans right now. This may get my privilege reduced or even taken away, but I’m willing to risk it. Here goes. If you have goals, work hard, figure out what you are good at and work towards getting better anyone can succeed. If you worry about what other people have you will fail. A great man once said, “But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?” –Dr. Walter Williams. There, I have transferred some of my privilege to you, don’t make me regret it.