Tolerating Intolerance. Who’s kidding whom?


I have to vent.  I have to rant.

What is it with the world these days?  No one can say anything without offending someone else.  It’s ridiculous.  For example, there was an article I read recently about Florida’s new business logo.  It’s being called ‘sexist’ by some because the marketing team made up of men and women at Enterprise Florida (the state’s chief economic development agency) chose to replace the ‘i’ in Florida with a picture of a tie.

Some suggested the ‘I’ should have perhaps been a cell phone or maybe the ‘F’ could have been draped in pearls, or maybe they should have anchored the ‘A’ in high heel shoes.  Seriously?  There are actually people upset about this?

Get a grip folks.  We have a sequestration looming, the government is intent on keeping their drones to spy on Americans, 4 brave Americans are dead in Libya and the White House is covering it up, and our Constitution is being ripped to shreds while we all sit back and watch Hollywood elites make fools of themselves, and yet we’re going to complain about a ‘sexist’ tie?  Give me a freaking break.

I can’t tell you how mad I get when I see people apologize for something they said because it offended someone else.  Good God.  Get a backbone you whiny wimp heads and stop being so offended.  Your offensiveness is offending me.  If I had a dime for every time someone said something that offended me, I’d be richer than Bill Gates.  I swear, our society is turning into a bunch of babies. 

I am sick of tolerating intolerance.  NPR’s Nina Totenberg felt the need this past December to apologize upfront for saying she was at a “Christmas” party.  Really?  Who was she afraid to offend that she felt the need to apologize for saying Christmas?  Would she have felt the same if she’d said “Hanukkah”, “Ramadan”, or “Kwanzaa”?  Oh, wait, we’re supposed to be politically correct and say “Holiday” party.  Tell me, when did “Christmas” become a vulgar word and “F^#k” become a fitting word to use 20 times in a sentence?  Why am I supposed to tolerate hearing the “F” word (which I do find offensive), but whiny beanie baby nut jobs can’t tolerate the word “Christmas”?  I have the following words for them:  let me tell you something you foul-mouthed hypocrites, if I can tolerate your disgusting, nefarious, iniquitous, obnoxious jargon 24/7, 365 days a year, you can tolerate my saying Christmas for one freaking month out of twelve.

Also, will someone please tell me why I have to tolerate listening to some moron’s cell phone conversation while in a public setting?  The other day I heard a whole conversation in the grocery store about some guy beating up his girlfriend, taking the ‘slut’s’ cash, buying some ‘hits’, only to come back later and apologize to his ‘ho’ for being a “f$#@^$%g a$$hole”.  And let me tell you, this chick wasn’t even trying to be discreet.  I think the whole store heard her.  I found her language and the entire conversation offensive and inappropriate.  Had I said something, I would have been regarded as intolerant.  I’ll tell you what I’m intolerant of:  other people’s’ lack of respect and consideration for others while in a public setting.  That just burns my bippy.

What happened to morals?  Decency?  Respectability?  When did it become repugnant to create wealth, maintain a good work ethic, self-respect, and high moral values?  When did people become angry and intolerant of those things that once made us as a great people and a great country?  When did we – the good, the honest, the ethical, the respectable – become wimps and let the bullies beat us into submission?  Why do so many feel they are entitled to someone else’s hard work?  Why did we allow it to get this far? Better question – what are we going to do about it?

John Kerry told a young member of JUMA (a group of young Muslims in Germany) that Americans have the right to be stupid.  He also went on to say how tolerant Americans are of each other’s beliefs and expressionism.  NOT.  I’m tired of our leaders apologizing for America and telling lies.  I’m tired of tolerating intolerance.  I want my country back.  Anyone else with me?

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42 thoughts on “Tolerating Intolerance. Who’s kidding whom?”

  1. Well, you have two issues here… I disagree that the Constitution is being ripped to shreds (although I have my misgivings about the drones), so let’s leave it at that. I whole-heartedly agree about overhearing the conversation. That’s WAAAAYYY too much information about someone’s drama. Shall we all clap our lands over our ears and start singing LA LA LA when we hear this sort of thing? The over-sharer might be offended — but it’s in a good cause!

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  2. I know exactly how you feel. I work in a public school, so the level of political correctness is at a beyond ridiculous level. I tend to be a very blunt person and it really aggravates me that we’ve set this unreachable standard of making everyone happy. What ever happened to something as simple respect and dealing with differences head on, (rather than avoiding them by way of a thick veil of carefully constructed language)? The more we sugarcoat everything, the less able we are to understand another perspective. IMHO.

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  3. I totally agree with you, Jenny. Political correctness has gotten completely out-of-hand. I have many Jewish friends who are never offended if I mention Christmas, so why should it matter to someone else of different faith? I acknowledge their holidays, too, so they should accept ours in the same spirit. After all, it’s supposed to be a season of peace for all major religions so why can’t we all get along?

    Disrespect and swearing is another thing that puts a bee in my bonnet. I guess I get that from my mom. Did I ever tell you she was brought up on assault charges because she slapped a picketer who swore at her in front of a grocery store she was entering? The judge took one look at my little mother and the big man pressing charges and laughed the guy out of court for wasting his time, thank heaven, but it could have been rather serious if the jerk had persisted and the judge had sided with him.

    It is a crazy time we live in. 😦

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  4. Sadly it’s happening everywhere. Australia, too.
    I find this one hard to believe but apparently there’s a kindergarten in Australia somewhere that changed the nursery rhyme “Baa-baa Black Sheep” because they can’t say Black as it might offend the aborigines – sorry – the indigenous people. Go figure. The world is going mad.

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  5. Ha! I think you need to let yourself go more often. Didn’t this feel good? I agree with so much that you said. The Christmas thing bothers me. I’ll celebrate Christmas if I dern well please, Thank you very much.

    And public profanity, especially around kids drives me crazy. Someone actually just sent me a note on public Twitter with the F-bomb in it, and I don’t even know them. Really? Seriously? I unfollowed, but I can’t delete the twit off my stream. So un-classy.

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    1. I’d see if you could delete it off your feed. I think there’s a way to do it.

      The Christmas thing upsets me so much. Thankfully, my kid’s high school still incorporates traditional Christmas songs in their music programs along with the secular songs and we still have a prayer before graduation ceremonies. It’s like lpatangan said above…we need to get back to morals and decency. Maybe the world will be okay if we do.

      Oh, and yes, it did feel good to explode. Sometimes, you just have to let it go.

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  6. Brilliant post, Jenny. I think a lot of people are fed up with whole PC thing. We had an incident recently in Australia where some government PC twits got together and said they wanted to change the name of a creek. It’s called Blackfellow Creek – they said this was offensive to the indigenous community. But the thing they didn’t do was ask the indigenous community who said these PC people were nuts – they loved the name of the creek and didn’t want it changed! The world is going crazy and I don’t have an answer as to why. I love saying “Christmas” as well and refuse to drop it 😉

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    1. ah, geez. I hear you. There was a high school football team here in the States that had to change their name from the Chiefs to something else because it offended the local Indian tribe chief. Holy moly. Really? It’s just gone way too far.

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  8. Great vent here. People have such thin skin these days. We\ have to fall all over ourselves to be politically correct and mince our words. I’m not advocating being mean-spirited, just frank and honest.

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  9. I do really tire of people being offended sooo easily, especially as someone who likes to speak her mind . . . if you can imagine that;-) Feel free to rant anytime! That was fun!!

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  10. Well said Jenny! In my hometown, a kid wore an anti-gay t-shirt to a tolerance day event at school. The kid was asked to never wear it to school again. The ACLU got involved and now he can wear his anti-gay t-shirt to school. I do not agree with his beliefs and I think wearing that shirt on that day was really disrespectful to the spirit of the day, but I do believe he had the right to wear the shirt. Even if it offended many people including myself.

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  12. I totally agree! I hate this whole politically correct thing. Of course we should do our best not to hurt people’s feelings, but it is taken too far. I’m certainly not going to apologize for saying Christmas. Just like I was so confused about the whole Chik-Fil-A thing a few months back. It’s a private business, owned by a private person. He can spend his money however he sees fit. If you don’t agree, don’t eat there. Simple as that. Instead it became this huge political debate. I’m just tired of it, and he ended up having to issue an apology. We are supposed to have “freedom of speech” and freedom in our beliefs, but if your freedom offends someone – NOPE! Better apologize so they don’t cry about it.

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    1. I completely agree. The Chik-fil-a thing was ridiculous. What I don’t understand is why Christians are under attack. Christians are supposed to tolerate depictions of Jesus in urine, the constant onslaught against displaying anything related to God and Jesus in public, but how dare we say anything about Mohammed or Allah. We can teach evolution in schools, we can teach about religion in school, as long as we leave out Christianity. If Christianity is included, all of a sudden there’s an uproar of separation of church and state. It seems the principles this country was founded on are the ones under attack, and I feel sad for the USA and future generations. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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    1. Thanks, honey. Sometimes I get so caught up about being politically correct and watching what I say, but I’ve seen too many apologetic statements lately for stupid stuff and I had to vent.

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  14. You have every right to vent. And no, this isn’t just in the U.S. I’ve learned that the people who scream the loudest about others not being ‘tolerant’ are those who are intolerant themselves, and are trying to push their opinions on others – with success unfortunately.

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    1. I’m unsure if you’re saying people like me are intolerant or people like what I’m talking about are intolerant. I’ll just say thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment and thanks for listening to me rant..

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  15. I feel your pain, Jenny. I completely agree with what you said. We live in a country that tolerates everything now. Morals are gone and doing the right thing is out the window. I was at Target a couple of weeks ago and this guy had a Bluetooth on and he was talking so loudly in the parking lot as he went into the store. He was showing off, Jenny. He wanted everyone to look at him and hear his conversation. When I got in line, he was two people ahead of me, carrying on, while the cashier looked at him. He never even acknowledged her. He continued to talk on his blueotth. A mother and her daughter were in front of me and I just said “Idiot!” and walked into another line. We live in a world of self absorption. It’s all about “Me!” Just take a look at FB posts. They’re the bane of self absorption. And I also do think people are ultra sensitive today and apologies are always needed now. Everyone has a right to their opinion. That is what makes the world go round, yes? And yes, whatever happened with Libya??? Nothing was ever resolved, was it? I can honestly say I’m not proud to be an American and like Donald Trump said, other countries laugh at us. Pretty sad commentary, isn’t it?

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    1. The whole Libya thing eats at my gut every day, but that’s a whole different post and one that would probably not be suited here. Let’s just say I’m a moderate conservative, 100% Constitutionalist, and I’m not too happy with my country right now, either. I know I’m tired of apologizing for believing in or speaking out for the values my father and all our servicemen and women fought for to keep us free.

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  16. I totally agree with you. If someone ever asks me to apologize for saying Christmas over Holiday, I’ll laugh in their face. I’m not Christian, but I do celebrate Christmas with the tree and the presents and the turkey, because that’s what my family’s done all my life, and I’m not going to apologize for it.

    As for that conversation you overheard … geez. I wish someone had gone up to that person and given them a flyer for a self-help counsellor. They obviously need it.

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    1. I can’t tell you how many conversations I hear in stores. What do we need to do to make these people understand the rest of us don’t care. And the poor clerks! I feel so bad for them, to not even have customers acknowledge them because they are so wrapped up in a phone call. So disrespectful.

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      1. That’s the worst. I don’t really have a problem with people speaking loudly, to be honest, so long as it’s in a place that’s already loud so I don’t really notice, and so long as they don’t make anyone else’s life more difficult. If they’re holding up a line and frustrating a cashier because they can’t get off the phone … not cool. I know that if I get called in the grocery store line and I get to the cashier before I’m finished the conversation, I’ll either tell them I’ll call them back, or I ask them to hang on a minute so I can give the cashier my full attention.

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        1. Exactly. We’re all guilty of taking calls in stores, but try to keep the call to a minimum or at least go somewhere you aren’t disturbing other people around you or holding up lines.

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  17. Whoa! I love the passion and conviction behind this post! I totally agree about how annoying it is when people have to make these public apologies for offending someone, or a particular group – of course sometimes an apology is necessary, but like you, it drives me nuts when it’s over nothing! Or over something that is only offensive if viewed in a certain way, but really is quite innocuous! I think some people want to be offended so that they can play the victim and so actively seek out to find offensiveness wherever they can. I always think how hard it must be to be a celebrity, or a politician, and constantly have people wanting to pick holes and find fault with everything you say.

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    2. Thanks for sharing this. Your passion is palpable! I think people need to quit with the political correctness – use some old fashioned manners and decency and there would be whole lot less to have to tolerate!

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