Roundabout Gibberish

November 24, 2012 by Cassidy Frazee | 3 Comments

Nothing starts off your day like waking up to the memories of dealing with idiots from the night before.

Let me tell you, I have this idea for a movie:  Thirty Going on 13!  The story of a woman who doesn’t work and still lives with her mother, and apparently hasn’t had an original idea in her head for most of her life, who likes to take to social media to throw out random shit with this hope it will stick among the few friends she has, and who–upon the moment someone dare question her incredible assertions–begins screaming that she’s being ATTACKED, and that you’re MEAN, and finally, she tells you she doesn’t have to tell you ANYTHING about why she believes what she says she does, I don’t want to talk to you any more, you’re always mean–

And then deletes her entire, foaming at the mouth, oh-I’m-sorry-I-called-you-a-lazy-government-soaking-bum-which-isn’t-the-same-as-me-’cause-I-still-live-at-home-with-mommy-forgive-me-I-say-bad-things-when-I-get-angry, batshit insane tirade of a post, because once it’s down The Memory Hole, it never existed, right?

Good thing they’re a writer (I should put that in quotes, but that’s being mean), ’cause that just means they’ll have time to work on getting that drinking at 8 AM routine, so they can damn everyone else who has done something worthwhile and pass out at three in the afternoon, secure in their knowledge that once they scamper back to the computer at 10 PM, they can get on and Post While Shitfaced, and find the few friends that remain who do enjoy listing to her Crazy Cat Lady polemic.

Seriously, there are enough negative vibrations floating about my life that I should know better than to get suckered into hair-pulling scree that are the 21^st Century equivalent of standing upon a soap box in the local park, and going on about the mind control chemicals hidden in fluidized water, and if you continue allowing your children to drink said water, eventually they’ll turn into teenagers and–Gasp!–start talking back to you!  Facebook should have a button that says, “I’m Now Writing On Toilet Paper With Crayons!”, which would warn some of us that we aren’t going to engage with people who are interested in honest debate–we are dealing with fools who piss themselves at the slightest disturbance of their sheltered lives.

Enough.  Time to move on.

Well, almost . . . the problem here is one that Isaac Asimov pointed out some time ago.  Let him speak his case in his own words:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”.

I am nowhere near The Good Doctor’s intellectual equal.  I do my best to stay informed, find out what’s being said on both side of the issue, and make up my mind using the available facts.  I may not always be on the correct side of opinion, but I’ll do my damnedest to support my side of an argument.

But for many people, like The Lead Paint Eater from last night, they seem to believe that the Sagan Standard doesn’t apply to them, that they are able to voice the most extraordinary claims without having a shred of evidence to back them up.  To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, this is the Clarion Cry of the Yahoo, the person who doesn’t care if you don’t like what they have to say, they going to damn well say it, because it’s what they believe to be the truth–and if you try to bring facts to the discussion, they’ll cry foul and accuse you of everything from genocide to forced sex with their goldfish.

Really, the train wreck aspects of watching an ass like this crash and burn in spectacular fashion is far outweighed by their ignorant, petulant, and at times borderline-racist screaming on any shiny thing that happens to catch their attention for the moment.  It’s not worth the hassle; it’s not worth allowing one’s brain cells to witness such a calamity, and to anguish over whether the choices available are fight, flight, or shotgunning Drano in order to end this exposure to terminal stupidity and bring about the peace of sweet, sweet death.

One should learn from their mistakes.  I have from mine.

At least until next time.

Damn.  I should stick to writing novels, you know?