Legislation that prohibits liquor sales on a Sunday is religion getting into bed with the state; obviously I think they should be completely and totally separate. I’m talking about her dismissal of why the JCC (the Jewish Community Center) should be closed so people can worship or do whatever they feel like doing, frankly. Correct me if I’m wrong, but blue state laws have nothing to do with the actual practice of Christianity. I’m as agnostic as they come, and think everything should be open every day of the year, but I respect a business’s right to close. I simply don’t when the state chooses to do so, as it does with most of PA’s liquor stores on Sundays. If liquor weren’t controlled by the state so heavily (in PA, for example, all liquor is sold by state-run stores), I’d simply choose to give my business to someone who was open on Sundays.
I could care less about insults, rudeness, or even racism. I just get embarrassed for the guy/gal spouting it.
What gets me to go ballistic any time are 1) people lying to me and 2) superiors abusing, demeaning or bullying their subordinates. 1) is even worse when the people are friends, but even a salesman who spouts bullshit at me hoping I don’t know better really, really makes me want to thump him then and there. As do religious folks who’ll strike a conversation with you under some pretense or other, then do a sharp turn towards proselytism halfway through. Stupidity I can ignore or forgive, dishonesty I will not tolerate.
Oh, good one ! Which reminds me why I really got irate playing Assassin’s Creed 2, or reading Dan Brown or that kind of thing : the notion that every named character in History was part of a secret cabal, had access to mystical thingamabobs or secret knowledge from the Ancients/Aliens/God, that kind of tripe.
It’s offensive to me on two levels : first, because it diminishes the very real achievements of these people, by pretending that whatever they did didn’t come from their little grey cells, influence, families, tireless effort and hard work etc… but merely because they were part of The Society.
Second, because it automatically infers, “of course I haven’t done anything worthwhile with my life - I’m not part of The Society, so they won’t let me. I’m really not just mediocre”. It’s intellectually lazy.
In a smaller sense, the “Great Person” vision of history, i.e. that it’s the actions and discoveries of a handful of great individuals that shaped the world and everyone else was just tagging along irks me for the same reason : it completely negates everything accomplished by everyone else, and it implies a bullshit notion of competitive destiny - you’re either Einstein, or you’re just an NPC who should go back to his trough.
The casual hatred & dismissal you see about ‘others’. I’m a furry, a friend of mine is a sex worker. It’s depressing how often you hear those, and many other, groups put down. It seems like there’s always someone that’s it’s okay to put down. I’m not putting it into words very well, but every group has an ‘enemy.’ Like geeks vs. jocks. But then there’s certain groups that everybody puts down. There’s always a justification too, which is sad.
People hitting kids. Men hitting women. Keep your hands to yourself. That is not how you communicate with or treat another person.
I agree with an earlier poster. What I find most offensive is the filthy language I often hear around me as I walk down the street, ride on a bus, move through a crowd, etc.
I take it based on the tone mostly. I am not opposed to jokes about any groups as long as they are done well and I think selected examples of many of them are funny. I lost a child but I have laughed at dead baby jokes, I am Southern and love redneck jokes, and I have daughters and I think some anti-female jokes can be funny. I think Hitler videos are often pretty clever and some of them crack me up.
However, all of those can fall flat fast if the person isn’t saying it in the right way or just being mean-spirited. Being a bad comedian is bad enough on its own but using sarcasm to try to mask try feelings and pass it off as something else is unforgivable.
I will never forget that my advisor in grad school was an extremely outspoken woman who sponsored a women in science program for undergraduates. I was the token male at one meeting when they got side-tracked from their tales of personal oppression to somehow talking about Texas and Texans and making jokes about them even this was at Dartmouth in New Hampshire. It wasn’t funny and I finally said, “You know, my mother is from Texas and she is a successful writer and speaker.” Without missing a beat, my advisor said “I’ve been there and I don’t like the people from there.” and went talking about other forms of discrimination without missing a beat or realizing the irony. We didn’t last much longer after that.
I am offended when people ask me inane questions like “What’s your REAL name?” or “Where are you REALLY from?”. Like it’s unthinkable that an ethnically Asian person could have a Westernized name or be from the US. Also it implies that I’m pretending or lying about who I am. I have to fight the urge to punch people like that in the face.
Crudely racist jokes offend me. I mean, sometimes I’m game for a good “a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar” joke, but the ones that are really crude, really nasty, really stereotypical offend me. Pointless racism sucks.
Also, I get offended by people who say demeaning things without having all the facts. Like people who say the Obama’s a Muslim terrorist, etc. He’s not Muslim, etc. If someone’s going to get all up in arms about something and they don’t have the facts it bothers me. Now if you have your facts and are still upset about something, then fine. Let’s have a rational dialogue about it. But don’t go raising Hell because you’re dumb.
Along with the usual racism/sexism/homophobia, I get twitchy at folks who are anti-science. That is, folks who are all “these SCIENTISTS are all part of a big conspiracy; they’re only looking to make money/destroy the world/further their own agenda and I’m obviously smarter than all of them.”
Scientists may make mistakes sometimes, but they have a lot more credibility than YOUR dumb ass.
I suppose this falls under the “sexism” umbrella, but I also get offended when someone implies that having small breasts means you’re not a real woman. Honey, if you’re basing your idea of what is feminine on breast size alone, you don’t know what the fuck a “real woman” is.
Racism gets me the worst.
For a milder thing, the belief that drugs must be behind EVERY amazing thing that happened. I can’t tell you how many times people have professed the belief that Lewis Carroll must have been high on LSD when he wrote Alice. Um, LSD wasn’t even synthesized yet, and just because YOU can’t think of anything so good without being high, doesn’t mean everyone needs drugs to think of great stuff.
But this last one is a bit irrational and I try to keep it in check.