Everybody Offended By Everything
I'm starting a new category of news today; it's called “Everybody Offended by Everything.”
It's fitting because it's true. From spoiled college students to religious types to, well, everybody, Americans are offended by everything all the time. We've turned into a nation of wusses – and tyrants – who can't stand it that people have different beliefs and opinions than ours. And we now demand that those who hold beliefs and opinions that differ from ours be silenced and punished.
If a political candidate we didn't vote for wins office – think Obama and Trump – we stomp and scream and throw temper tantrums and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of their electoral victories. And we do everything possible to undermine their administrations.
On many college campuses last year, delicate students were traumatized by the mere presence of Trump campaign signs. And lots of those students demanded that the signs be removed.
Our national motto really should be: “You are all free, free to think exactly like I do! And if you don't, you die!”
Examples of people who are offended are endless, and beginning today, I'll start documenting some of them. I'll start with a situation here in Albuquerque and deal with how dumb and stupid the situation really is.
It's a billboard at I-25 near Montgomery that says, “Just skip church. It's all fake News!”
The ad space was purchased by an atheist group, and predictably, lots of people are deeply offended by a mere seven words. TV stations and the Albuquerque Journal newspaper did stories on the billboard, and they hauled out ministers, priests, rabbis others to say just how offended they were by the billboard's message.
Some called the billboard's message a slap in the face of Christianity, and on and on and blah, blah, blah.
To which I say: Big-ass f****** deal.”
The atheists don't believe in what you do and they have a right to say so publicly. If they think religion is nothing but superstition and a way to control the masses, well, they have a right to their opinion and they have a right to express those opinions.
Read between the lines of what the rabbis and priest and ministers are saying about the billboard's message and you get something like: “We have a lock on the truth. Our beliefs are above question, and no one has the right to challenge them. Challenging our beliefs is wrong, wrong and wrong.”
And, those who are offended by seven words on a billboard have a right to be offended. But as my friend Dan Klein said about this:
“Free speech in the public square upsetting people. You would think this was on a college campus and 'snowflakes' were complaining that their safe zone was being infringed upon. As Christopher Hitchen's said, 'What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.' It's always hard to confront your belief system, but there is nothing wrong with doing so. So snowflakes get over it. Don't we get tired of everyone being a 'victim?'”
My issue with the whole thing is why was it even a story?
There are hundreds of billboards in the metro area, and people in the news business decided that a single billboard in a metro area with more than 900,000 people is a story?
I'll bet that all those who were quoted in those so-called news stories had never seen the billboard until they were sent pictures of it by the news organizations.
In other words, the news organizations probably created a controversy where there was none.
I guess it ain't just in church that we're getting fake news.
