This is a great screed against the dysfunctional people, parties and religions amongst us who seek notoriety via blathering about crap they’re offended over. Enjoy.
By John Hawkins
In the era of the Internet and reality TV, everyone seems to be chasing Andy Warhol’s “fabled 15 minutes of fame” and one of the easiest ways to get them, especially if you don’t have any talent or don’t want to work for them, is to throw a big public pity party for yourself.
There are people like Cindy Sheehan, Sandra Fluke and to a lesser degree, even Hillary Clinton who managed to turn being professional victims into careers.
Setting that aside, there’s the financial motive. There are people who quite literally make a living by accusing other people of racism, sexism and homophobia. Do you really think people — who are only going to be able to make their house payments if they keep making accusations of racism — are going to see anything other than bigotry when there’s money on the line?
Professional race hustlers are bad enough, but the sheer number of amateurs getting in on the game has an even bigger negative impact on society. Every day, we now have millions of people trying to figure out how they can be aggrieved so they can claim their own delicious little slice of victimhood.
As often as not, when you hear their caterwauling about how upset they are, you can’t help but think it’s their way of saying, “Everybody look at us! We’re victims! We’re offended; so you have to pay attention to us!”
There are people offended by American flags, by non-offensive words like “niggardly” that sound similar to offensive words, by Christian business owners who don’t want to bake cakes for gay weddings, by children’s songs that mention pigs and there’s even a family that’s terribly upset about Ben & Jerry’s “Hazed and Confused” ice cream because….well, can you even guess? It’s because their son died in 2008 in a hazing incident and so they’ve decided they don’t like the word “hazed.”
That last example cuts to the heart of the problem because you certainly feel for people who lost their son and it’s understandable that they’re against hazing. But, where does sympathy stop and common sense begin? How far is everyone else supposed to go to cater to their irrational complaints? As someone who quite literally gets hate mail every day of the week from people who are deeply offended in almost every way imaginable because I dare to have a different opinion than they do on an issue, I’d say not very far.
Read more: Townhall
