Ignorance on the ‘Net; or, Anybody Can Have an Opinion

   Ya know, the Internet is the most democratic thing ever to happen to this planet.  Nearly anyone can say or read whatever they want, national borders disappear intellectually (except in dictatorship holdouts like China, but even those will fall eventually), ideas get shared by folks that never knew such thoughts existed.

  No wonder it’s seen as such a threat by Government, even ours. 

  All that aside, it sometimes makes me gag at some of the stuff out there.  And I don’t mean porn and kinks, they’re in their own category.  I’m talking about sites that try to present a reasonable (to them, at least) argument on a topic or point of view.  And God help us, the people that comment there.

  I do a lot of digging around, following links, in the course of researching postings on this little site and on others we’re involved in.  iTz abslooty Mazing th terBel ritinG und Gramer u findd Owt ther   uNowe wat i Meen&    (spell check had a total fit over that one!).  Don’t know if you’ve fun across any of these.   

   Yeah, maybe you have.  The creepy thing is that they’re on real .coms (which means that somebody’s actually paying to do this) and a lot of the comments are even worse.  The level of illiteracy, ignorance, intolerance, stupidity, racism, sexism. ‘ism’s’ of every kind is incredible to anyone with half a brain and maybe just a touch of compassion.

  Angie assures me that I do have a half a brain, and I felt really compassionate the last time I emptied a mousetrap…

   Anyway, these folks get to express their views, that’s freedom of speech, and I wholeheartedly support it.  It’s just that, geez, it’s kinda embarrassing to be part of the same species sometimes.  Does that make me an elitist?  Maybe.  Or maybe I just appreciate folks being able to express themselves coherently, even if they are whackos. 

  I don’t know what this rant is all about, really.  Maybe I’ve just lived in a liberal minded, intelligent community for so long that it’s always a shock to see what else is out there.  Barbarians at the gate, as it were.  Maybe I read too much science fiction in my youth and had unreasonable expectations as to where we’d be by 2009 AD.

  Instead I find myself crass, prejudiced, occasionally bigoted and quite cynical about the state of human affairs.  And I consider myself to be liberal.  Tsk, tsk. 

  On that cheery note, g’day!

  Not really related, but interesting:  Chalk and Talk

The Band, Southern Pride, KKK

Right now, first off, we’re gonna eliminate the KKK from this discussion.  Just because you’re a southern redneck doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a KKK supporter.  Is that clear?  OK.

   Angie, Jim and I just watched a documentary about ‘The Band’.  Great music, that was back when musicians had musical ability, played instruments, and actually knew what lyrics were.  So much for nostalgia.

  Anyway, it brought mind this whole thing of Southern Pride.  Confederate flags, etc.  The current impression is that this represents intolerance and racism,  the refusal to accept equality between the races.

Maybe, to some degree.  Racists are everywhere, on both side of the fence.  This ‘Sothern Pride’ thing has always been a sticking point for me.  OK, they lost, give it up, huh?  On the other hand, that war was more than a disagreement about slavery.  It was also about state’s rights, the right to leave the Union they hay had voluntarily joined for their benefit.  When it ceased to be to their benifit,they chose to leave that Union.  They felt that they were being treated wrongly and wanted to do things their way.  Kind of like the Colonies a few decades earlier.

They were denied that opportunity, fought hard to achieve it, suffered greatly and lost.  Their social structure shattered, their economy demolished, their way of life (not just the slavery issue) changed forever, all they had left was their pride. 

  How would we feel if we’d lost the revolution?  Would we not be pissed off?  Would we not be proud of our attempt at freedom from what we felt was an unjust regime?

   So I understand the Southern Pride thing to some degree, though I’m glad they lost, and I think they should get over it.  Most of the Southern boys who died for the Confederacy didn’t fight to preserve slavery, they died to preserve Southern Freedom (at least for white folks) as they saw it.  Remember, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free Northern slaves, just Rebel states.  We were the last civilized nation in the world to ban slavery.

So that’s why I can enjoy southern rockabilly.  It’s proud, unyielding, and basically says ‘fuck you Neil Young’!  Plus it’s good to dance to!