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Apparently it's now official that all my post content is going to come from news that I hear from mecha.
When I was, oh, around twelve or thirteen, I loved Star Trek. I mean loved it, in that it represented to me, like, the pinnacle of what society should be. Sure, there was war and mean kids who made fun of me and stuff now, but someday we'd all wear pajamas to work and no one would fight and it would be okay to enjoy learning. I suppose you could say it was sacred to me -- this ideal future to strive for, full of hope and limited only by the bounds of the universe itself. (When you go back and watch with a more critical, adult perspective, you realize that it wasn't so full of rainbows and lollipops as all that, but bear with past-me. I was twelve and had no friends.)
I got made fun of for my Star Trek obsession a lot, and other kids would insult it to my face, and I'd deal with it because when you're the nerdy kid in a school where nerdiness is not cool then you can basically either deal with it or go insane. They insulted that which was sacred to me, and I felt bad, but went on with my day, because it wasn't like I had a right to punch them in the teeth for making me cry or anything.
Except apparently I did! The right to free speech apparently extends only so far as you can go and not insult something that someone else holds sacred. If you draw a wacky comic about Muhammad, it's your fault when the death threats from the wackjob fringe of Islam come rolling in -- they're not to blame, YOU are! Did you really think your right to free speech meant you could avoid those consequences?
So when those cool kids back in junior high made fun of Star Trek, I should've grabbed one of my dad's guns and blown them away. That which was sacred to me had been mocked -- which meant all rules governing my behavior were off.
Man, I missed out.
When I was, oh, around twelve or thirteen, I loved Star Trek. I mean loved it, in that it represented to me, like, the pinnacle of what society should be. Sure, there was war and mean kids who made fun of me and stuff now, but someday we'd all wear pajamas to work and no one would fight and it would be okay to enjoy learning. I suppose you could say it was sacred to me -- this ideal future to strive for, full of hope and limited only by the bounds of the universe itself. (When you go back and watch with a more critical, adult perspective, you realize that it wasn't so full of rainbows and lollipops as all that, but bear with past-me. I was twelve and had no friends.)
I got made fun of for my Star Trek obsession a lot, and other kids would insult it to my face, and I'd deal with it because when you're the nerdy kid in a school where nerdiness is not cool then you can basically either deal with it or go insane. They insulted that which was sacred to me, and I felt bad, but went on with my day, because it wasn't like I had a right to punch them in the teeth for making me cry or anything.
Except apparently I did! The right to free speech apparently extends only so far as you can go and not insult something that someone else holds sacred. If you draw a wacky comic about Muhammad, it's your fault when the death threats from the wackjob fringe of Islam come rolling in -- they're not to blame, YOU are! Did you really think your right to free speech meant you could avoid those consequences?
So when those cool kids back in junior high made fun of Star Trek, I should've grabbed one of my dad's guns and blown them away. That which was sacred to me had been mocked -- which meant all rules governing my behavior were off.
Man, I missed out.
