some things should be respected and avoided

From time to time I get fed up with opinions — even my own. I just don’t want to hear them, and I often wish I didn’t have them. Is there such a thing as being overdosed on opinion? Maybe if I write this blog post, it will help me find out.

Earlier I made a classic mistake that I make way too often. I clicked on a link to a mind-numbing piece of “conservative” idiocy (in quotes because I don’t want it to be conservatism) that actually made me want to defend Sean Penn (a man I loathe), and which made me want to go out and watch a film in which I would otherwise have no interest; “The Dark Knight Rises.”

No, you did not pull the trigger in this case. You did not don the gas mask. But you were the inspiration, and you are the architects.

Your celebrations of diabolical mayhem and pornographic violence prey on the fantasies of sick, fragile minds. You insulated them from the painful reality of bloodshed. You have inspired mass murder. You are the Osama bin Laden of this travesty.

What about my sick, fragile mind? How can I get some insulation to protect me from the painful reality of being irritated nearly to death by such drivel?

Oh, and if I were to go see the movie, I would become a “sap”:

…who paid to see your wicked movies — only to have the very scenes come alive and kill them in the dark, sticky rows between seats of a movie theater.

I guess it’s supposed to reassure me to be told that if I am killed in a movie theater, I am a victim of Hollywood. But suppose I go to church and get killed there? Nah, that’s too political. How about an art museum? A zoo? Who would I be a victim of then.

Anyway, I’m just pissed off to realize that there are influential people with conservative bona fides who think that way. Who should I blame for my upset morning? Myself for clicking the link? Drudge for providing it?

The problem is that the fault lies with me for being in the same “tent” as these people. I am there not because I like them, but because the other tent is worse.

That does not change the unhealthy fact that I have come to live in dread of opinions.

It may be that there is such a thing as too much opinion. Whether I am “overdosed” on it is another matter, and maybe the drug analogy fails, because I have been steeped in a daily stream of opinion for so long that it has often seemed like total saturation. If opinions were like drugs, I would be expected to develop a thing called “tolerance” and then they wouldn’t have the same effect any more. I would “need” more. What an awful thought that is. I hate opinions, and I have to grit my teeth and force myself to put up with them. The process gets harder and harder — precisely the opposite of the drug addiction model.  Perhaps it’s more like poison ivy, which can seems harmless and lead people to believe they are “immune.” Until (after repeated exposure) the dreaded “delayed hypersensitivity” kicks in, and the massive rash appears.

I don’t know. But I was greatly cheered a few weeks ago by a bumpersticker on some unknown welder’s very working class pickup truck. Like many cool items, it’s for sale at Amazon:

Music to my tired, troubled ears, and candy for my bleary screen-damaged eyes. Not surprisingly, the truck also sported biker type stickers. Like my co-blogger, I like bikers. They naturally belong on the right, and I think there would a lot more of them on the right but for the unbearable moral scolds like the one who got me going earlier.

Like anyone cares. Like those people want to hear my opinion any more than I want to hear theirs. (Fortunately, the First Amendment does not require anyone to listen to or read anyone else.)

Not much that I can do about any of it.  None of this has any effect on my political views. I just wish I could vote now and get it the hell over with.