Why I Will Argue With Stupid People Until I Stroke Out.

This post was originally written on 1/5/2012

It seems like lately the planets have aligned to bring out all the stupid people in the world in force.  So I spend many of my days frustrated and angry unless I hide in my house and refuse to accept any input from the outside world.  Since I have children and a family and a pathetic little excuse for a life, this is not a practical solution for me.  Plus it's really boring, cause I'm stuck watching a small selection of the same movies and reading books that I've owned for years when I do.
       Before you stop reading and assume that I am considering anyone who thinks differently than I do to be one of the aforementioned stupid people, let me make it clear that this is not the case.  Stay with me for a bit, because I do have a point here, and it's not a hard one to follow or accept if you're willing to open your mind and let something besides your own preconceived notions in.
      First, you have to understand the distinction between ignorance and stupidity.  Ignorance is the lack of knowledge about something- essentially that you have not learned about something.  Stupidity is the insistence that you know something even when evidence exists to the contrary, and you refuse to educate yourself before you act on your ignorance.
      Now, in my personal sphere, the examples of stupidity that crop up most often and just make me feel like I have to argue with someone occur most often in the areas of politics and religion.  Usually when those two subjects begin to overlap and become intertwined.  Since we here in the US are in the middle of a very heated political cycle, my blood pressure is taking a beating.
     Throughout history we as Americans have lived through many periods of upheaval.  We have fought many wars at home and abroad to gain our land and our independence from outside influence.  Shamefully, some of these battles took place to wrest from others what we were not willing to ask for and share with those who were here before us as well.  Throughout our existence as a separate and sovereign nation, we have continued to grow and evolve through the addition of many different people, ideas, and technology.  We have struggled amongst ourselves and seen the abolition of slavery, and the recognition of ALL men and women as being created equal.  Another thing that we have seen is a tendency in times of fear and change for us to forget that we are all one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  During these times, we become a nation of individuals, divided by the things that make us different from one another, whether it be race, culture, religion, country of origin, or sexual orientation.  During these times we fight amongst ourselves to assert our authority over and right to impose our way of life upon those who are different from us, rather than to trust in our system of government to do what is necessary for the good of all and to not do what only benefits the few.
        Currently we are facing the fears of a weakened economy, a changing situation abroad that leads us to fear what other countries can or will do to us, and a shifting demographic within our own borders which leaves many to question whether the country their grandchildren will grow old in will bear any resemblance to the one they grew up in.  Scary stuff, it's true.  But nothing worse that what we have faced and survived in our past.  To answer the question of how scary it will become, we must ask ourselves how willing we are to educate ourselves about the bad times we've had before, and learn from the mistakes we have made- or whether we are going to blindly move forward and repeat them.
        My biggest fear in these times is of the people who vehemently insisting that we return to the way were at some idyllic time in our distant past.  It matters little whether they are referring to the Era of Ronald Reagan, or the 1950's, or before our Civil War.  What matters is that these people are proposing that we revert to this perfect time because it is their vision of a Utopian society as it pertains to THEM.  They are not giving thought to what the major struggles of the day were for our nation or our citizens as a whole.  They are willing to trade the progress and changes that have improved the lives of countless men and women in exchange for what they believe would make them content and secure.  Take the population we have \ back to 1981?  We force millions of gay men and women back into the closet.  Take us back to 1952?  African American children are not allowed to school with white children, and their parents can't drink from the same water fountain as a white man.  Back before the Civil War?  Herman Cain would be the property of Rick Perry.  That may not matter to the person calling for the change, but it certainly isn't liberty and justice for all.
         You may have noticed that I keep referring to the Pledge of Allegiance, and you may also be thinking that I am missing something when I do.  There is a reason for that, and it brings me to my next point.  The Pledge of Allegiance, as it was originally written, goes like this:

            "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible,    
with liberty and justice for all." 


         These words were written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 as a submission to a contest held by a magazine.  The winning submission was to be included along with every flag sold to public schools, in the hopes of drumming up interest by school leaders to have a flag for each school.  It was first used in schools during Columbus Day celebrations in October of 1892.
         Ordinarily, the written words of an individual are considered to be their intellectual property, and to appropriate and use those words as your own, or to change them, has consequences.  But in 1923 the National Flag Conference decided to change it to specify the flag of the United States of America.  Later, in 1942, 11 years after Bellamy's death, Congress officially recognized this version of it:

            "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

           Later, The Knights of Columbus began adding the words "under God" when reciting the pledge at the opening of each meeting, and began a campaign to get Congress to recognize this addition for the entire nation.  From 1951-1954, several attempts to pass this through Congress failed, as did requests to then President Truman asking him to make the change.  It wasn't until 1954, when newly inaugurated President Eisenhower was approached with the proposal, that the change was made.  It was then, on Eisenhower's request, that the bill was proposed to Congress and the bill was made law.  It is important to note that this was during the same time period as McCarthyism.  This was a time when we as a nation were in fear of Communist Russia, and one of the main things that set us apart from the Communists was religion.  Here, we are free to believe and practice any religion we choose.  Communism in Soviet Russia imposed on it's citizens state atheism, and prohibited the practice of any religion.  Reminding folks on a regular basis that ours was a nation under God while theirs was not probably didn't sound like a bad idea at the time.
           My point when it comes to the Pledge of Allegiance is this:  Lately we hear a lot of people arguing that ours is a Christian country, and using those two words in the Pledge of Allegiance to support that argument.  They mistakenly claim that these words are in the Constitution, or assert that because some of the men who wrote our Constitution practiced Christian religions that they intended that we base our society on Christian principles.  They reach back into history and point out that the Pilgrims were Christians, and claim that these are the people who founded our nation, so we must be a Christian nation.  And they usually argue the loudest when insisting that a Christian belief that requires or prohibits a certain behavior should be made a national law that applies to every citizen.  They place this assertion on signs and yell it on street corners when they insist that others who do not share their faith have no place in our society.  They use this argument when claiming the right to make those who do not share their beliefs give time and space for them to espouse them, but without being willing to give the same time and space to espouse their own beliefs.
           We are once again in a time of fear, and we are becoming divided.  Stupid people who refuse to educate themselves about who and how our nation has come to be what it is today are using their ignorance to try and draw lines in the sand.  I fear that by not standing up to this threat I will allow it to come to pass.  And one day I will find myself living in a country where my life is dictated by beliefs I do not share, my behavior is checked by laws I have no voice to question, and my right to even be here is taken away.  So I argue.  Every single time someone charges forward to demand a change that is in violation of the document I hold sacred because they only care about what they hold sacred, I fight back. And I will continue to do so even if it does make me stroke out and die.  Because it's better to fight for the truth that I believe in than risk living with someone else's lies.