BRIAN
_____________________________________
Actually, the first decent debate oriented
email that I have ever received,
and I truly doubt that Brian even owns a Harley.
Greetings
to you. I must start my message off by stating that I, too, am
not a "Member of the Bewildered Herd." I
am neither a member, nor have I
ever so much as approached the treacherous
cliff-edge leading to the eternal
plunge of ignorant stupidity.
During my daily evening routine of
political/scientific discussion, an
associate was so kind as to provide me with a link
to your site. I have to
say that you've done well in creating a shrine to
wisdom and intelligence.
Or so it would seem.
I came across your many articles dealing with
Harley Davidson motorcycles
and your comparison of them to Japanese makes. Out
of curiosity I decided
to browse your "Owner Feedback" section.
At first I found what you typed to
be amusing, and yes - the messages were running
rampant with grammatical
faux pas.
Your ability to quickly dissect a message and
point out ever single little
error to the reader is interesting. Some people
might envy you it. Others,
well they might call you a pompous ass.
Perhaps he is having grammatical difficulty due to
nationality. Perhaps he
is from
computer-literate and is unfamiliar with technical
workings.
Not everyone is a mental colossus when it comes to
technology - perhaps Tom
is a middle-aged (or older) man and is only using
a computer at an
associate's home or workplace. It is wisest to go
over all of the facts
before making blatantly ignorant statements.
You might have strong opinions and an ability to
think "outside the box,"
yet you also display what seems to be the exact
same bull-headed ignorance
you claim the Harley owners are guilty of
possessing. You are as adamant
about your Japanese bikes as they are about their
American ones. However -
you are both incorrect (and no, I don't mean to
introduce a third party to
the argument).
Both you and the Harley owners (and many millions
of other people) are still
focused on the past. You make a comment about them
being close to the
renaissance and heading in the wrong direction? As
bad as that may seem,
you are all focused on a way of thinking that
dates back to the 18th century
(in its most potent form).
They might be behind you, yet you are still behind
yourself. Your arrogant
bleating that you call wisdom could very well be a
copy of a 19th century
factory owner, spouting capitalist propaganda to
his underprivileged and
uneducated workers. Meanwhile, you perch on your
self-made pedestal of
excellence and glower thoughtfully as you attempt
to find more ways to make
fun of people. Most likely you will take this
message and try to turn it
into an ?example to anyone else stupid enough to
go against my superior
omniscience.? I hope you do just that ? it will
provide myself, and anyone
else who reads your website, with some
entertainment as you struggle vainly
for ways to change the subject so as to focus on
the typo or grammatical
error that I might have made.
Once you begin to understand that capitalism is
the tool of idiots and that
it will ultimately turn us all into drooling
cash-craving zombies, then
maybe you will have a right to ridicule the masses
on their so-called
ignorance. You lack even a basic system of respect
for other people?s
lifestyles. Perhaps their Harley Davidson
motorcycle gives them some rare
moments of pleasure in their otherwise humdrum
lives.
To insult them based on that is akin to insulting
a man simply because he
enjoys playing Baseball over Hockey. They both
have their ups and downs,
yet who can say which is superior? Certainly not
you.
I?m running out of time here, so I?ll finish with
one last point. The
person most deserving of ridicule here happens to
be you. You claim that
these Harley owners have no lives, yet who are you
to say that? You have no
right. You wrote what seems like a ten thousand
word essay in response to
Tom?s three-sentence letter. Who has time to do
that? I can?t believe that
you went to all that trouble to make a point that
isn?t even noteworthy.
Dwell over this next time you feel like writing a
15-page article ridiculing
a man on his grammar and choice of motorcycle.
Lastly, keep in mind that I
have no hatred or ill feeling towards you seeing
as how I don?t know you.
Regardless of that, you?ll probably retaliate with
a particularly potent
insult rather than an intelligent response you?d
expect from even a retarded
person.
I request that you post this message and your
responses on your website
rather than sending me a short but insulting
message and then deleting this
email altogether. Thank you for your time.
Brian
_________________
To which I replied
_________________
Greetings to you,
Brian.
Thank you for the
mature, thought provoking email as well as the chance to discuss some topics which are
very important to me. Never before in the history of
“During
my daily evening routine of political/scientific discussion, an associate was so kind as
to provide me with a link to your site. I have to say that you've done well in creating a
shrine to wisdom and intelligence. Or so it would seem.”
You have a
daily evening routine of
political/scientific discussion ?
How very quaint.
”I came across your many articles
dealing with Harley Davidson motorcycles and your comparison of them to Japanese makes.
Out of curiosity I decided to browse your "Owner Feedback" section. At first I
found what you typed to be amusing, and yes - the messages were running rampant with
grammatical faux pas.”
I have found
(through many long years of experience with the owners of
these ridiculous, self-propelled, primigenous icons of ignorant pop culture) that the
words “intelligent” and “Harley
rider” are
almost always mutually exclusive and therefore cannot
logically be used together sympathetically in the same sentence without breaking a lot of
basic rules of proper English grammar. In
fact, if the term “intelligent Harley rider” isn’t an oxymoron, it very
well should be.
"Your ability to quickly dissect a
message and point out ever single little error to the reader is interesting. Some people
might envy you it. Others, well they might call you a pompous ass.”
By your reference to
‘others’, I infer that you mean people such as yourself.
Why do I dissect
emails, gleefully pointing out glaring spelling errors and grammatical faux pas with what
appears to be the sole intent to ridicule and belittle the original sender?
Simple.
This is the 21st
century, Brian. I don’t think it is too
much to ask for the ability of those who wish to debate with me to not only be able to
discern the rudimentary operation of basic email, but also how to use a spell checker as
well as be able to put their argument together with what appears to be more than a third
grade level education.
Honestly, am I
simply asking too much of these malcontent
simpletons?
Apparently I am and
that saddens me because I really don’t think that my requirements are very hard to
meet.
Our society has
abandoned all forms of personal responsibility, Brian.
We are no longer held responsible for, nor are we willing to take
responsibility for, our own actions. That, in turn, allows us to act like idiots without
fear of repercussions because no matter what we do, it isn’t our fault. We don’t have to strive hard anymore because
the fear of failure, the sting of failure, has been politically and surgically removed
from the equation. Failure isn’t even a
speed bump on the road to success any more.
I do not believe in
this line of patently dangerous thinking as I believe that each person should
be personally responsible and held accountable for their actions.
I also believe that
we, as a society, should put the ‘negative’ firmly
back in ‘negative
reinforcement’, that is, mistakes should be harsh learning
experiences to reflect back upon in somber contemplation of where you went wrong. Failure should not be looked upon as a bragging
right.
If that mode of
thinking makes me a pompous ass, so be it.
"Perhaps
he is having grammatical difficulty due to nationality. Perhaps he is from Europe and is
only learning English. Perhaps he isn't particularly computer-literate and is unfamiliar
with technical workings.”
None of these
circumstances are of my concern
and why these
things should be of concern to you bothers me deeply. You,
sir, are enjoying the luxury of laughably whimsical hindsight. You are generating
and exploring meaningless excuses not for yourself, but for a complete stranger whom you
do not know, whom you have not met and you are doing all of this for no other benefit than
the justification of your own personal feelings in the matter. You are uncomfortable with my rather harsh and
unfair judgment of Tom so you have the very real need to intervene on his part because you
feel that Tom has been unjustly wronged. You are trying on excuses for Tom like they were
fashion accessories taken from your own personal wardrobe, mixing and matching them
together until you achieve a comfortable combination that allows you to personally feel
good about Tom’s actions and therefore justify his ignorant behavior. You would rather accept Tom as he is, than point
out that he is a failure, because if you pointed out that Tom was a failure, then that
might hurt Tom’s feelings and you would be considered ‘mean spirited’ by
our oh so politically correct society.
I find this to be a
typical, liberal mindset that is rampant in our failing society today. We can no longer say that “dumb” is
“dumb” and we can no longer say that “wrong” is “wrong.” Instead, we come up with the ridiculous notion that
there are different shades of dumb, that there
are different shades of wrong. Now we can have good wrong and bad wrong right along with good dumb and bad
dumb. The only problem is, of course, that we
can’t really use the bad side of these
definitions, because that would inherently invalidate the reason for having these liberal
definitions in the first place.
This in turn leads
us, as a society, to be a kinder, gentler nation that now refers to “idiots” by
such sugar coated, non-hateful names like “learning
challenged” and “intellectually
restricted.”
It’s all part
of the liberal concept of victim mentality. Everyone is a victim, no one is to blame for their
own actions because there is always someone else, some thing else, some other mitigating
circumstance which has caused the person in question to do whatever it is that they have
done wrong. We, as a society, have wrongly
been made to feel guilty for pointing out other people’s mistakes and correcting
people when they are wrong. We have been made
to feel guilty when we don’t take these mitigating circumstances, no matter how
ridiculous or flimsy they are, into careful, thoughtful consideration before we administer
blame directly to the individual in question.
I could not care
less about Tom’s social conditions, his background, his current quality of life, his
education, or any other psycho-babble that a more liberal minded member of this species
may feel is somehow otherwise directly responsible for what Tom produces. The fact is, I’m concerned only with what Tom presents to me. If I find fault in the final product of what
someone submits to me, then I shall look at that person directly, and no further than that
person.
Tom must accept
personal responsibility for what Tom submits to me and for what he submits to any other
human being.
That is the bottom
line.
”Not everyone is a mental colossus
when it comes to technology”
“
-perhaps Tom is a middle-aged (or older) man and is only using a computer at an
associate's home or workplace. It is wisest to go over all of the facts before making
blatantly ignorant statements.”
Perhaps Tom is this
and perhaps Tom is that … Bah. More
of that foul smelling, ochre colored, bleeding heart liberal
victim mentality pus-like mindset oozing out of the collective
gangrenous wound of the rampant contemporary societal decay.
Harry S. Truman, the
33rd president of this great country, said it
best when he quoted
“the buck
stops here.” What
President Truman was referring to was personal responsibility,
Brian. Personal responsibility was abandoned and
forgotten about long ago. We’ve been
taught, one might even say literally brow-beat, with the thought that personal
responsibility has no use in our culture and that personal responsibility is something to
be avoided at all costs.
There may well be many things that have in some token way affected Tom’s development as a
human being. Perhaps Tom didn’t have a
happy childhood and perhaps Tom didn't get a free breakfast paid for by a government aid
program at the public school which he attended. Perhaps Tom's father made Tom play
with Barbie dolls instead of G.I. Joe. Perhaps
Tom's father dressed Tom up in a skimpy little Dallas cheerleader outfit with pom-poms and
made Tom jump around the living room in white bobby socks while his father sat naked
watching Monday Night Football.
Perhaps one, some,
or all of these things were the real underlying
cause that eventually led up to Tom submitting to me such an inexcusable piece of
excrement with his name proudly stamped upon it. However, all these quasi-mitigating factors are
completely irrelevant
because
no matter what happened
to Tom at any point
in his life, the simple fact is that Tom
is an idiot. If that is too harsh a word for you to absorb
comfortably, then I will further describe Tom by saying that he is learning challenged or that he is intellectually restricted.
I don’t know
how you view life, Brian, but my opinion is that unless someone fully understands how to
operate a highly complex piece of technology then I believe that person should not be
allowed to operate that piece of technology or have access to it at all. This
applies to not only email, but a rubber ducky, Silly Putty™, a Slinky™, any NERF™
product, hazardous industrial chemicals, firearms, main frame computers, high explosives,
fast breeder reactors, the space shuttle orbiter, and all things that are in-between.
Like the saying
goes, "just because you can't ride doesn't mean you should."
If Tom can’t
figure out how to operate the rather simplistic functions of email, then he should not be
allowed to use email at all. If Tom is going
to send email, then he must answer for that email and accept responsibility for what he
sends. I judge Tom by what Tom submits to me,
not by what Tom has undergone during his life. Ultimately,
that email is a product of Tom’s hands and mind and will either reflect positively or
negatively upon Tom.
”You
might have strong opinions and an ability to think "outside the box," yet you
also display what seems to be the exact same bull-headed ignorance you claim the Harley
owners are guilty of possessing.”
There is a very fine
difference between “displaying” and “emulating”, Brian. I would have thought that someone of your
intelligence would be able to tell the difference between the two.
“You
are as adamant about your Japanese bikes as they are about their American ones.”
No. I am adamant about being an original, individual
human being who thinks on their own and generates wholly original thoughts without crimp
notes, flash cards, cue cards or the mass media supplied teleprompter that we lovingly
refer to collectively as a “television”. I
am adamant about being an individual, not pretending to be one. There is a big difference between the real thing
and just dressing for the part.
The argument isn’t
about motorcycles, per se, though that plays heavy into it.
My argument is about being an individual, about moving away from the
herd-like mentality and beating your own path. My
argument is about standing on your own two feet and thinking for yourself instead of
believing everything you read, see or hear.
Be your own peer.
Formulate your own
opinions instead of mimicking what is told to you by those whom you imitate.
Real individuals don’t
base their lives around inanimate objects, and inanimate objects do not determine the net
worth of a human being. Unfortunately, our
society says differently and not only promotes that type of behavior, but actively works
to positively reinforce such behavior as well.
Educated,
intelligent people generally will not settle for something that is perceived to be less
complex than what they feel that they can understand, as anything less is simply not a
challenge in their mindset. Intelligence
requires constant challenge in order to develop and maintain its sharp edge. There is a lot wrong with America today …. NASCAR, Harley Davidson, AOL, MTV, and every
element of this insipid pop culture that we are suffering under are clearly the leading
indicators of where society is heading; a valetudinarian rush into mediocrity.
“However
- you are both incorrect (and no, I don't mean to introduce a third party to the
argument). Both you and the Harley owners (and
many millions of other people) are still focused on the past. You make a comment about
them being close to the renaissance and heading in the wrong direction? As bad as that may
seem, you are all focused on a way of thinking that dates back to the 18th century (in its
most potent form).”
Once again, you have
failed to see the underlying logic of the argument. I
am not focused on the past, far from it. I
have my feet firmly planted in the future and I'm trying to get as many people as possible
to follow my lead and do something with their own lives.
It’s not that hard to accomplish, hell, all it requires is an attitude
(not the kind of attitude that you can buy in a store or out of a catalog), a somewhat
functioning brain, and the absolute will to achieve and accept nothing but the best. If I have to kick some people in the ass to
jumpstart their cerebellum, then so be it.
Brian, if you are
against the advancement of the individual, if you support the endorsement of wholesale
flock behavior as well as the validation of societal stagnation, then you and I are very
different and we obviously move along diametrically opposed schools of thought.
“They
might be behind you, yet you are still behind yourself.”
And this would clearly put you way out in front
of all of us. Am I correct? How
very cheeky.
I have a different
opinion of where you are, Brian. I believe that you are sitting on the fence,
solidly in the middle, afraid to make judgments because that would require that you might
alienate yourself from certain groups of people which you hold in high regard. There is an old saying; "If you don't stand
for something, you will fall for anything."
I’ve made my
stand, and it isn’t in the middle.
The middle of the
fence may give you an unprecedented view of the conflict as it rages on each side, but
that doesn't make you a participant, merely an spectator and history has decidedly shown
that no conflict was ever won by spectators.
“Your
arrogant bleating that you call wisdom could very well be a copy of a 19th century factory
owner, spouting capitalist propaganda to his underprivileged and uneducated workers.”
That’s
beautiful, sir, truly original in both context and underlying meaning. I applauded this allegory with a hearty golf clap.
“Meanwhile,
you perch on your self-made pedestal of excellence and glower thoughtfully as you attempt
to find more ways to make fun of people.”
I don't make fun of
'people', Brian, I make fun of 'idiots.' There
is a big
difference. I belittle and ridicule those who
need or deserve my ire and disdain the most. I
get along perfectly well with normal, educated, intelligent ‘people’. People, it seems, have no problem communicating
with me in an intelligent, mature manner. Idiots,
on the other hand, come out of their fetid corner swinging ineffectively with clichéd
attacks while spouting tired old mantras. There
is nothing original about the self-propelled morons that somehow manage to contact me,
their emails are wrought with laughable logic, sad errors in reasoning, and inexcusable
errors in basic grammar skills. THAT is why I ridicule and belittle them.
To set your argument
straight, I selectively choose my targets, I don’t indiscriminately lash out at
everyone who contacts me via email. That’s
very naïve of you to think so.
“Most
likely you will take this message and try to turn it into an “example to anyone else
stupid enough to go against my superior omniscience.?
I hope you do just that ? it will provide myself, and anyone else who reads
your website, with some entertainment as you struggle vainly for ways to change the
subject so as to focus on the typo or grammatical error that I might have made.”
Interesting.
“Omniscience”
is a word that is not often used in conversation by our society today, Brian. I doubt one in ten people would be able to
correctly define that word let alone spell it.... The rest would probably think “Omniscience”
was a new fragrance by Calvin Klein.
As I have mentioned
before, I only attack the
idiots who try to push their unoriginal views and
their farcical perceptions off on me all in order to somehow validate their ridiculously
pathetic existence. I grow weary and have a very low tolerance for the systematic,
sycophantic regurgitation of clichéd corporate slogans memorized either from the scrawl
found on the walls of truck stop public restrooms or copied down out of the latest mail
order catalog.
I really don’t
see this turning into a flame war, Brian. In
fact, this will probably be the least funny reply I have ever posted on my site, but it
will serve my purposes just as well. I see no
reason to personally ridicule you as you have produced a grammatically correct email that
was concise, polite, and one which expressed your point of view quite intelligently.
Sorry to disappoint
you and those like you who would believe that I’m a narrow minded ogre that wiped his
ass with a handful of pages torn right out of the Webster's New Collegiate dictionary and
somehow spontaneously learned a high level vocabulary through the miracle of cellular
osmosis.
”Once you begin to understand that
capitalism is the tool of idiots and that it will ultimately turn us all into drooling
cash-craving zombies, then maybe you will have
a right to ridicule the masses on their so-called ignorance.”
Oh, goody. I clap my hands together in abject glee at this
tired old line of archaic reasoning. Yes, I
expected the discussion to turn towards this direction after your comment on the 19th
century factory workers.
Were you a liberal
arts major, Brian?
If capitalism is bad,
Brian, then why does it work so damn well? What
form of government do you propose that we embrace? Socialism? Communism? Feudalism? Hedonism? Capitalism
works just fine for me, thank you so very
much. Capitalism allows
anyone with a brain and the basic ability to work, as well as the willingness to work, to
rise as far and as fast as they desire. The
truth is, no matter what the liberals would like you to believe otherwise, what you are in
life is really all up to you and you alone to determine.
It all goes back to personal responsibility.
If we can’t blame our own selves for failure, then we have nothing to
care about if we fail. Failure has no sting,
no bitterness, and subsequently success is not as sweet.
As I have personally
excelled in life, having started out with only the basics afforded to any other normal
human being, without any handouts or a silver spoon shoved up my ass, I fail to see why I
should be forced to give up huge chunks of what I have legitimately earned through the
fruit of my hard labor all in order to give it to people who are not willing to put forth
the same effort that I have.
I have this thing
against bleeding heart liberals, which I consider to be just another politically correct
word for “stone dumb socialist idiot”.
Please try again,
Brian, and use contemporary thinking instead of Marxism.
"You
lack even a basic system of respect for other people?s lifestyles.”
Do you seriously
believe that I “lack
even a basic system of respect for other people?s lifestyles?”
What laughable lemming logic you espouse! As I have said before, I didn’t start this
argument, but after turning the cheek twice, I’ve gone back to the golden rule of
‘treat others the way you want to be treated’, and modified it to be ‘let
others treat you how they want to be treated’. What
you are seeing here, Brian, is the defensive result of an assault of undiluted ignorance
carried out by a bunch of inbred redneck Luddites who clearly “lack even a basic
system of respect for other people’s lifestyles.”
If you want to define that rather lengthy description which you have
presented, then I suggest you look no further than the typical Harley rider as your target
reference point.
Allow me to show you
how ludicrous your mindset is, Brian.
The next time you
awaken in the middle of the night to the sound of breaking glass and discover some burned
out crack-head or methamphetamine addict climbing through your bedroom window with the
intent to do you and / or your family great physical harm all for the sole purpose of
further supporting their illegal drug habit, I want you to remember
that when complete strangers do you wrong,
that you should have a basic system of respect for other people’s
lifestyles
before you pass such unfair and harsh judgment on them.
After all, it’s probably
not the methamphetamine
addict’s fault that they are a career criminal and you really shouldn’t blame
them for their actions. In fact, you should
feel honored that they chose you, your house, and your family out of all the other people,
houses, and families in your area.
To revisit your line
of reasoning, “it is wisest to go over all of
the facts before making blatantly ignorant statements" and while that logic may
work fine in a purely retrospective,
highly academic review afforded by a
daily evening routine of political /
scientific discussion,
it has no place at all in reality and is a liberal luxury that very few can truly afford
to enjoy given the current state of the world in which we live today.
“Perhaps
their Harley Davidson motorcycle gives them some rare moments of pleasure in their
otherwise humdrum lives.”
And perhaps these
motorized mental midgets do exactly what
other people tell
them to do because it is easier
to grab some throttle and make some noise rather than using their brain and figuring life
out for themselves.
Perhaps generating
more than three wholly original and complete thoughts in one day would both mentally and
physically exhaust these scoggins, requiring them to take a rather long nap or suffer the
risk of having a neural short circuit fuse their cerebellum.
Perhaps these
utilitarian chimps follow the teachings of their favorite television program host more
than they follow the teachings of Christ.
Perhaps Jerry
Springer is their guiding light and eternal savior because God’s house only has an
audience on Sunday morning, but Springer has an audience every single day.
Perhaps these idiots
think that all new leading edge technology is invented by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his
faithful assistant, Beaker, at Muppet Labs.
Perhaps you are
right.
On the other hand,
perhaps I am right.
Perhaps being
intellectually stagnant should be considered once again to be a very bad thing.
Perhaps being a
member of the bewildered herd should be the subject for ridicule.
Perhaps archaic
technology shouldn’t be worshipped as a religion.
Perhaps idiots
shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet (even if this were to cause AOL-Time Warner to
go bankrupt overnight and dissolve as a viable business entity creating a chaotic vacuum
in the evil greed-soaked capitalistic universe).
Perhaps some
companies who have refused to change to meet the times and who have consistently done
poorly should be allowed to fail miserably on their own.
Perhaps they should be allowed to go out of business like all of their
predecessors, without the benefit of a government bailout and helping hand after helping
hand.
Perhaps the greatest
motorcycle in the world should live up to its claim to fame in some form other than
questionable advertising and outright propaganda.
Perhaps the greatest
motorcycle in the world should have the greatest people in the world riding it, instead of
blithering, nose picking, banjo playing idiots who knuckle-walk and communicate in
monosyllabic grunts and non-committal bursts of flatulence.
Perhaps ignorance
shouldn’t be something to be proud of, let alone a commodity that is commercially
available to anyone who desires it any time of the day or night.
Perhaps people
should make their own image and create their own lifestyle, instead of ordering a pre-made
life out of a catalog and subscribing to the flock.
Perhaps more of
society should get off their lazy asses and not be afraid to speak out on what is wrong
with our culture today for fear of hurting the feelings of idiots.
Perhaps each
individual should be held responsible for his or her actions, with no one else to blame
but their own self if they do something wrong. Perhaps
a lot of things should be changed in our society.
Perhaps we'll even
see these changes before it is too late.
The word “perhaps”
is a veritable see-saw of intellectual indecision, Brian.
It can swing both ways and is akin to walking the middle of the fence. The word “perhaps”
is a hollow defense both in debate and in life because it offers the reassuring thought of
commitment without having to suffer the reality of action. The
word “perhaps” is an intellectual rocking chair, it gives you something to do,
but takes you nowhere.
History has shown
time and time again that
"perhaps" has never been considered to
be a justifiable validation for any course of action.
The world is full of ‘perhaps’,
Brian. It is second only to ‘what-if’
in the power to muddle your mind and cloud your thoughts into inaction while making you
sound intellectual and concerned. Whether you
spend your life on a sea of “perhaps”, sailing
with a ship of fools continually debating ‘what-ifs’, or
whether you strike out on your own and power your way full throttle down the unbeaten
paths in a cloud of burnt rubber and spent irreplaceable fossil fuel will ultimately
determine what kind of person you are, or even more importantly, what kind of person you
truly were.
“To
insult them based on that is akin to insulting a man simply because he enjoys playing
Baseball over Hockey. They both have their ups and downs, yet who can say which is
superior? Certainly not you.”
I do not support
organized ignorance masquerading as professional behavior, Brian. Therefore, neither sport is superior to me
because I consider all organized / professional sports to be on the same pedant level of
acceptance among the dullard sheep in our society. I
do not immerse myself in the filial devotion of professional sports nor do I care to waste
the three precious neurons required to memorize the vital stats for an entire group of
inane simpletons who’s only ability to make a living is through playing what amounts
to a simple childhood game. The contribution
of professional athletes to the overall advancement of society, let alone civilization
itself, is less than nil, therefore, I will and shall seek my personal heroes in far
higher layers of the social strata along far more intellectual levels and castes than
these crybaby walking billboards.
Professional
athletes worry about tax breaks and who their next big dollar sponsor will be while
teachers, police officers, and firefighters have to worry about how to put food on the
table for their families and their children. Those
who entertain us are taken care of more than those who nurture and protect us. We won’t cry for an American soldier that
falls in combat in Afghanistan defending our very way of life, but we’ll slather our
vehicles and bodies with a stylized number “3”, dedicate large stretches of
highway as a memorial, and build a ten foot statue to a redneck race car driver who’s
biggest contribution to civilization was the ability to drive really fast in a
counterclockwise motion around a big circle and make a living doing it by charging people
even dumber than him to watch him do it.
We have front page
news stories of athletes walking out of their games, of refusing to play for the poor,
befuddled, bewildered herd and choosing to strike (or as I like to refer to it, demand ransom) for yet more money from the
already placated herd because they think that they are not being paid a fair amount to
play a game for a living.
Meanwhile, outside the stadium, homeless combat veterans sleep in urine
soaked cardboard boxes in dark, cold alleys because their country (and the society that is
willing to pay otherwise laughably inept individuals millions of dollars just to play a game) has forgotten the real heroes of civilization completely.
We have a very odd society, don't we, Brian? We live in interesting times that will be studied
long and deep by historians who peruse through the remains of our culture long after we
are gone.
Long ago I elevated
myself intellectually far above the need to pacify my mind into lucid acquiesce by paying
admission to watch grown men beat the crap out of each other on so called ‘fields of
honor.’ I’ve grown weary of watching
their farcical actions choreographed to the accompanying roar of a mentally placated herd
that supports, approves, and rewards their Philistine behavior with huge amounts of
monetary praise and rabid fanaticism. I refuse
to pay someone else large amounts of money for the utilitarian privilege of being able to
advertise their team, their product, their logo or to display my otherwise insalubrious
devotion to some pop culture entity on the various surfaces of my body.
Please try another
allegory, Brian. That one is too small and it
doesn’t fit me.
”I?m
running out of time here, so I?ll finish with one last point. The person most deserving of
ridicule here happens to be you.”
Brian, I know
what rights I have more so than you do, and I
have every right to ridicule stupidity and ignorance when I encounter it. Unlike you,
I'm totally comfortable with exercising my right to point out stupidity and ignorance and
to tell other people when they are wrong. Wrong is wrong. We've
forgotten that simple fact as a society and it is costing us dearly, if we aren’t
already beyond the point of no return.
While it appears you
may not want to hurt anyone's feelings, I have no qualms about doing so. Your
behavior reinforces the act of failure, it coddles it, while my behavior punishes it in a
rather severe way. You incorrectly believe that the person most deserving of
ridicule is me. I have a different opinion on that matter.
The person most
deserving of ridicule is whoever submits to me an insipid piece of idiotic nonsense and
tries to defend it using plagiarized prose taken straight from the dealership brochures
and oft-thumbed through, dog eared pages of catalogs. Surely one of your academic stature
can understand the following allegory.
Think of me as an
impromptu college professor. My site is the
classroom, those who visit it are the students. I
give the lesson and then ask the visitors to either agree or disagree with me. Those who disagree with me, I ask to put it in
writing and explain not only their stance on the issue, but also their reasons for doing
so. I expect original thought and personal
effort. I’m often quite disappointed as
the material that I am submitted is far from college grade work. If it was actually handed to me in person by some
of the individuals who submit it, I would say it would be done on construction paper using
white paste, crayons, and maybe some colored markers.
When I get back test papers that look like the students copied verbatim text
from their handbooks, I will subsequently grade accordingly using a lot of red ink.
“You
claim that these Harley owners have no lives, yet who are you to say that? You have no
right.”
"You have no right", "you can't do that," "you can't do this" ...
Whine.
Whine.
Whine.
Whine.
I don’t claim
that Harley owners have no lives, I know that for a fact.
How do I know this? Because I am
an individual, Brian, not an INDIVIDUAL™ with a suggest manufacturers retail price
tag hanging off my toe. I move and think
outside the flock, therefore, I have every right to make fun of those who chose to be part
of the herd. If you can't think on your own, someone else will do it for you and you
have no right to complain once you give up the right to express yourself through your own
ability. If you aren’t strong enough to
stand on your own two feet, you can’t complain when someone picks you up and carries
you somewhere you don’t want to go.
I believe that I (as
well as every other educated human being) should have every
right to point out stupidity and ignorance and ridicule it to the fullest extent possible. It’s an intellectual culling of the herd. It’s an earned right that everyone with an
education has and an earned right that should be exercised on a much more frequent
basis, in my humble opinion. If people
were told more often that they were wrong, or if they were told that they were stupid or
that they were ignorant, if they were told any of this instead of being told that their
actions were all right and that what they did wasn't their personal
fault, then we might not have all the trouble and societal decay that we have in this
country today. If wrong still equaled wrong,
instead of ‘well, that depends on what your
definition of ‘wrong’ is”, it
would be a far different culture.
The problem is that
for the last several decades, we’ve been taught that failure is not
something to be ashamed of, that failure is admirable, and that failure is even to be
rewarded. Harley Davidson is a perfect example
of failure that has been rewarded.
“You
wrote what seems like a ten thousand word essay in response to Tom?s three-sentence
letter. Who has time to do that? I can?t believe that you went to all that trouble to make
a point that isn?t even noteworthy.”
This is
entertainment, Brian.
Good old fashioned,
mirth-filled, tear and laughter producing, spontaneous guffaw generating,
do-not-read-this-stuff-with-any-liquid-or-food-in-your-mouth-or-you-run-the-risk-of-succumbing-to-gross-explosive-projectile-expectoration,
thought provoking entertainment on a very grand scale.
I am truly sorry that you missed that rather obvious fact in your somewhat
cursory review of my site.
“Dwell
over this next time you feel like writing a 15-page article ridiculing a man on his
grammar and choice of motorcycle.”
You haven’t
given me very much to dwell on, Brian, but I will
honestly try to think
of your wisdom the next time I put my intellectual size 12 hobnailed riding boot solidly
upside some poor, ignorant hill scoggin's ass just to hear him whimper and utter some
monosyllabic attempt at a meaningful retort. Certainly
you have not changed my views or my mind in the least, and since I can churn out a
cohesive page of text and humor about every other minute or so (give or take), fifteen
pages doesn’t take me very long at all to produce.
It’s all a
labor of love, Brian, I assure you, and until people like you learn that being an idiot
isn’t something that should be admired or retroactively psycho-analyzed ad nausea, I’ll
continue to call it like I see it and to do so in a way that involves no punches pulled
and no apologies made. If someone isn't prepared to accept personal responsibility
for what they submit to me, then they don’t need to be sending me their views or
opinions.
Your personal heroes
may be complete idiots and abject failures, Brian, but mine most certainly are not.
Sometimes, Brian, an
idiot is an idiot
and all the thoughtful retrospection in the world isn’t going to change that.
“Lastly,
keep in mind that I have no hatred or ill feeling towards you seeing as how I don?t know
you. Regardless of that, you?ll probably retaliate with a particularly potent insult
rather than an intelligent response you?d expect from even a retarded person.”
Brian, as
intelligent as you have tried to portray yourself, you have completely missed the meaning
of my website in your attempt to scrutinize it on some superfluous level of academia.
I commend you on the careful aim which you took in order to fire off your expert
shot of well thought out logic, but I'm afraid that the first rule of marksmanship is to
make sure that you know exactly what you are
shooting at before you start popping off caps down range.
In this instance,
you clearly violated the first cardinal rule of sharp shooting and have completely wasted
a perfectly good round of what some might have considered match grade quality ammunition.
”I request that you post this
message and your responses on your website rather than sending me a short but insulting
message and then deleting this email altogether. Thank you for your time.”
-Brian
Your humble wish is
my command.
Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss a few not often visited topics in regard to my site and to allow me
to clarify some points which I believe that are being overlooked in the general melee that
this site is infamous for.