Rant

One of the things that frustrates me the most about myself is that I don’t speak up when I should.

Part of it is out of respect, but mostly I’m just scared. I don’t trust that I can back up what I say, and I don’t like having people mad at me. So I stew, getting much angrier than if I’d spoken up in the first place.

Clearly this should not continue. So, this being my own corner of the universe, I’m taking a moment to opine about a few of things I haven’t had the nerve to contradict people about in actual recent conversations.

Maybe more than a moment. Maybe more than a few. When you see how nutty some of them are, you’ll see how badly I need to learn how to speak up.

• President Obama was born in the United States, and he is not Muslim, and questioning that makes you a little racist and a lot stupid. If you think he’s doing a rotten job, you’re welcome to, but think that based on facts.
• Muslims (who, see above, do not include the president) are on a scary secret mission to convert the world and take over our culture to exactly the same degree that evangelical Christians are on a scary secret mission to convert the world and take over our culture. It’s true of fanatics of both religions. I dislike both.
• Gay people have precisely the same legal and moral legitimacy to relationship as straight people, to precisely the same extent. Disputing that is distorting everything God is about. Trying to legislate against it is not only immoral but conflates the separation of church and state.
• Life begins when it’s viable. Cake batter isn’t a cake and sixteen cells isn’t a premature baby. Abortion should be legal in the first trimester.
• Even if you don’t agree with a particular religion, you should still be respectful of it. Especially if you don’t know much about it.
• Persuant to that, it’s hateful to describe the Catholic Church as something you “recover” from. I disagree with the Church a LOT (as you see), but that makes it all the more my responsibility to help it evolve.
• Being single is not actually a problem for which I require your pity or assistance. I’ve discovered an interesting correlation, though: the more you need to “fix” me, the happier I am that I get to live my life and not yours.
• Also, my being single does not make me wild for us to be besties/dates when you become single too. If you lost your friends in the breakup, it’s because nobody else liked how you treated your other half either.
• And since I’m here, owning a cat doesn’t make me a “crazy cat lady”, but there isn’t much you can say that will make me dislike you more. Why is this reserved for women? Why isn’t there a “crazy [whatever] guy”? I know several legit crazy cat – and dog – guys. So unfair.
• Working with younger people doesn’t give you the right to condescend to them. It is not their fault you’re old. You don’t get to be parental to anyone you didn’t give birth to, and anyway, that’s not “parental”, it’s smarmy and patronizing. When you do get to work with younger people, it’s your job to learn as much from them as you’re teaching them.
• Working with older people doesn’t oblige you to hide your smarts. It is not your fault they’re old. You can respect your elders and still see that someone older than you is rotten at their job.
• It is neither my duty nor in my power to keep anyone else from their self-destructiveness, no matter what they say to try to put the responsibility on me. And as a matter of fact, the more they do that, the less it’s about me.
• There are not as many gun crimes committed in the UK than the US, and the lowest crime rates in the US are not in the places with the most lax gun control. The rate of gun homicides in the UK is four times lower than in the US. It is true that violent crime rates HAVE been higher in the UK than in the US. But here’s my issue: A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a suicide, assault, murder or accidental shooting than in self-defense. They do more harm than good. Personal handgun ownership should be illegal.
• The housing crisis was not being caused because the current administration wants us to be a socialist nation and is trying to collect ownership of homes by letting banks hold on to foreclosed homes longer than they have to even though it would all be solved if banks extended mortgages to twice their length. First of all, how would banks holding on to homes mean the government owned them? Second of all, if banks worked that neatly with the government, wouldn’t they have figured out how to avoid the banking crisis? You think they did that on purpose?
• The Federal Reserve Bank is not privately owned by a conspiracy of wealthy private citizens who make it do their bidding. The Fed has private elements, but it’s not a secret conspiracy. In other news, Colonel Sanders is not putting a chemical in his chicken to make you crave it fortnightly, and there is no Pentavirate.

This post is thoroughly negative and pretty rude too. But I’m still publishing it. Because it’s time I started saying what I think, even if I only start here. And if you disagree – well, frankly, just this once in my life, I’m done with listening politely.