I swear I’m going to be unfriending people on Facebook, for posting this kind of ridiculous garbage:

That gem was from my brilliant stepmother. Like I said, I forgave her and my dad, we’re on good terms, though I don’t see them much nor do I care to, and we’ll be on good terms, even if I do end up removing her from my friends list. When you believe what I believe, you forgive people. Always. Anyone, for anything. You forgive them. Doesn’t necessarily mean you give them a chance to wrong you again. But you do forgive them. No exceptions. I’ll explain that later. But yeah, I’ve removed people from my friends list, for constantly posting stupid crap.

Not because I can’t handle seeing something I don’t agree with, mind you. But because I find it difficult to see something I so passionately disagree with, and not respond. And can I tell you a secret? I always feel bad about it. It’s kind of a difficult position, that I have. I really do consider myself a great deal more intelligent than most people, as arrogant as it may be of me. And while we’re at it, I partially attribute the perceived arrogance of that belief to the fact that we’ve assigned a universally high value to intelligence, as a society. Intelligence is simply my strength. I have weaknesses, too. I can’t play a musical instrument to save my life. My artistic ability is mediocre at best, as evidenced by the drawings I’ve posted. But we don’t put so much value on those abilities, so if you’re good at them, you can call yourself good at them, and not be seen as a braggart. Similarly, you can remark that another person isn’t so good at them, and it’s not a huge insult. Do the same thing with intelligence, and the game changes, doesn’t it? “You have no musical talent.”? No big insult. Unless you’re saying it to someone who prides themselves on musical talent. “You’re not intelligent.”? Holy shit.

And in the same vein, this is why there are so many stupid people desperately trying to fake intellgence, which is how we end up with things like the Creation Museum, and Fox News. We glorify intelligence, and when you do that with something, you inevitably get “posers”. Making it even worse, is that intelligence is somewhat a validation of one’s outlook. And our culture, at this point, in terms of intelligence, is more posers than actual, genuinely intelligent people. It’s like, 10 Glenn Becks for every Bill Maher. A phenomenon has occurred, where what constitutes intelligence has degenerated and obscured. Like, if 80% of all people thought that purple was green, then for all effects and purposes, it is. By the same process, whatever ridiculous thing you might believe, it’s not considered false, because there is no definitive authority, in a social context, so it’s just considered one of many different opinions, even though some of those other opinions have a lot more facts, and better reasoning, backing them up. Society makes its own rules. That’s why, for example, we all know that someone who shouts out the N-word is a racist asshole, but when someone says that marriage is between a man and a woman, well that’s just their perfectly valid opinion. 

This is bad for us. Think about a bunch of five year olds, playing house. Now imagine that instead of playing, they’re actually running a household. Then imagine they’re running a business. Then imagine they’re running the country. This is where we are, as a culture. We’ve lost any kind of objective standards, for intelligence, for competence, for leadership. So when any idiot stands up and says, “I know what I’m doing, I should be in charge!” our collective response, in effect is, “Fuck yeah, you should! Go get ‘em, slugger!” And um...history has shown, this is not a reliable method, for selecting leaders. We are America, the pitiful.

Anyway, I think I’m smarter than most people. Whether that is the case or not, it is how I perceive things. So someone posts something like that, above, and they are what I consider to be an adult with the mind of a child, at least relative to myself. And in that instance, what do you do? I want to correct them, but I know it’s not going to have a positive impact, it’s just going to cause a lot of hostility. But shit like that has real consequences. Put God in the classroom, and it infringes on religious freedom, and interferes with actual education. (Make no mistake, though, I do believe in free expression, and I do think anyone who wants to pray in school should be allowed to. I just DO NOT support placing God/religion in any position of authority, in schools, or any public/government property.) And this is just an example, just about every other issue out there has shit like that, and my urge is to at least put the proper idea and the proper reasoning out there. Like, “Yeah, well I blame school shootings on the black cat who crossed my path, 20 years ago. Same principle, just as valid.” or “If you really believe that, good news! I have a cure for cancer! Circle circle, dot dot...” But then what am I? Of course, a condescending prick, who thinks he’s better than everyone else. Who do I think I am, with my uppity facts and logic? So I just ignore it most of the time, but when someone starts posting a lot of that crap, I just take them off my friends list. I don’t need to be bombarded by it. I rarely repost anything, myself. Because here’s a novel concept, I have and post my OWN ideas!