What's wrong with this picture is that once again you're leveling your own vision of reality on me and what I believe, and instead proving you don't have a CLUE what's going on in my head, politically or otherwise.
I believe and agree that the Second Amendment protects the rights of the individual to keep and bear arms, but that letting John Q. Public run around with full-automatics or never knowing if some seemingly well-adjusted individual could be packing until he has a REALLY bad day and just snaps is a BAD and frightening thing.
I'm sick and tired of parents groups controlling what's in the media because it may be offensive to .5% of the population. When a movie like Blazing Saddles couldn't be made in today's climate because minority groups have such thin skin now something is SERIOUSLY wrong. I have the right to call someone black, or Chinese, or crippled without it being meant as an insult or degrading. I have the right to USE insulting terms in a tongue-in-cheek manner that's just in fun or satire without it being taken seriously and that the PC Police should back the hell off.
I believe that immigrants to this country should learn to understand and exist in American culture and know English, but that they have EVERY right to not be forced--by law or fear of whack-job supremacists--to abandon their own. A Muslim woman in America has as much right to wear a burqa in public as I do to dress in a way appropriate to MY culture.
It is meaningless.. It says nothing.. what is "too far" for you is much different than what is too far for me or anyone else.
It says EVERYTHING. And if you STILL can't see that now, then you're so far wrapped up in your own little world and your own beliefs that you're blind and deaf to what anyone else is saying and have no place attacking or criticizing me for mine in the FIRST place.
What are the "rights or contributions of the individuals" to you?
Individual thought. Individual expression. That I have the right to write or paint the most disgustingly offensive work of literature or art imaginable without fear of legal reprisal. That I have the right to restrain MYSELF of my OWN ethical volition. That I have the right to contribute MY voice, however controversial it is, to the public discourse without fear of ridicule or attack, or government retribution. That I can be what I want and WHO I want, WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT GOES WITH IT.
And I live my life with the understanding that some things I CAN'T do because the government must look out for the public safety and guarantee that everyone has the same chance that I do. I can't run around firing guns into the air. I can't drive 50 in a 25. I have to acknowledge and respect the fact that while I have the right to be what I want to be and to become the BEST that I can be my neighbor does too, and I can't exclude him because I'm white and he's black, I'm a man or she's a woman, I was born here, or he's an immigrant. The government PROTECTS that equal opportunity and I have to accept that.
I live my life with the understanding that I can't deny you YOUR right to your narrow world-view, but the MOMENT you target me, claim you KNOW me, think you can LABEL me, I will NOT stand by quietly.
So go back to your mountain stronghold and keep thinking you have reality all neatly wrapped up with its big pretty ribbon on top, and that the whole world revolves according to your perception of it.
