Friday, March 20, 2009

Socialist Pot Smoking Atheist Does Not Believe Obama is the Messiah

Sometimes I want to ask, because I wonder, how much is too much? I realized lately that I ponder this question a lot: How often do we all take ourselves too seriously?

How much is too much? Whether we drink more than others think we ought to. Whether some athlete chooses to smoke a little pot. Whether we place stickers on bikes that scare law enforcement in an age of post-protectionism and terror. Whether humor is bawdy or off-color and just happens to offend someone because they don't like a certain word or phrase. Whether we think republicans are evil or hippies are lazy. Whether some confused woman wants, through artificial means, to exponentially increase the US population and the burden on taxpayers.

I ask another basic question (and I'm not trying to be flippantly libertarian or quasi-anarchist): People, when did we have to start taking everything and ourselves so seriously? I think this phenomenon is a manifestation of the ultimate kind of ego -- an ego of national, societal and cultural proportions.

I will admit there's one thing that needs to be taken very seriously -- as a culture we need to seriously lighten up and learn how to laugh at this preposterous construction we regard as absolute and worthy of any and all sacrifice to preserve. Lighten up. It (your/our reality) is not worth all that. Perception is fickle. Perception is subjective. Your view is yours and no one else knows what the hell you're looking at.

Rest assured of a few things: The Communists are at bay. Obama is not a fascist. Socialism is not bad and chances are you ought to learn more about it before current headlines or comments by overstuffed talk show Republicans cause you to shit your pants. You are not the only one who "gets it," but you are the weirdo you worried you'd become. So what?

Questioning is not insulting. Criticism is not hatred. Do you know the difference? Perhaps you need to educate yourself. And perhaps you ought to adjust your tone. Blame never got any soul off a sinking ship.

1 comment:

brother yam said...

We've been through eight years of rule under a literal-minded, humorless tyranny brought about by a sucker punch from a bunch of literal-minded, humorless would-be tyrants. It'll take a while for the trauma of the near decade-long disaster that was the high water mark of the Republican party to ebb from our national character.