Being offended is just an excuse

This archived article was written by: Christopher Palo

I recently got my book allowance from the GI Bill and figured I would splurge a little and get something nice. As I sit here, and scroll through Facebook seeing post after post containing links to controversial articles.
Mixed in the stream of “Doctor Who” and “Supernatural” posts, just after the “Which Disney prince should you marry” (I got Flynn Ryder, though technically not a prince to start out with, I’ll take it) lay an articles titled, “Gay face has been scientifically proven,” source omgfacts.com, and another titled, “ What Obama just did to our military will change America forever…” This source is from americanfreedomfighters.com.
One of the articles is about how scientist have studied people’s ability to identify homosexuals, the other is about how President Obama has outlawed Christianity from the U.S. Military. One is potentially for fun, though some may take offense to it. The other is to stir hatred and malice towards the current commander-in-chief and those who follow him.
The issue is that people are believing that these are legitimate articles proven with facts, but you can tell that they are fallacies made up to ruffle feathers. Because we are a nation of hurried individuals, all we read is the title. We are immediately infuriated and now because this “fringe work” may slightly coincide with our beliefs or our fears, we adopt it as our daily or weekly mantra. We hop atop our soap box and spout this rhetoric as if it was from our own investigations. We gather our troops and convince them to spread the word. What was a potential gag piece or the ravings of a hateful person has just spread and caused dissension among us.
I recently saw a video about two black men beating a white man unconscious because he was debating the legitimacy of the racial claims made against the confederate flag. This is a hot button topic for many people ,a lot are for and a lot are against. But in the comment section of the video a black man posted, “i condone the beating and killing of all white people men, women, and children, until the senseless killings of black people stopped.”
The man is talking about the police shootings, whether just or unjust, across the country. This has been a huge issue for ever a year, an issue that has been exasperated by social media. It has also been a very one sided argument. which is polarizing this nation into different races and even religions.
These videos only show white cops shooting black men and often times there is no back story like in the case of Micheal Brown. All that was shown was a black man was shot, there was no mention of the fact that brown was intoxicated and there was no mention of the fact that he just robbed a store. All there was was race bating propaganda against an already overly scrutinized agency. I would be remiss if i said all cops are good. They most certainly are not, but this pertains to all walks of life soldier and civilian, republican and Democrat, and hippy and yuppy. All of these have profoundly good and horribly terrible people in them. No sub-class of people no matter how true the intentions of that class are completely without sin, to think so is foolish.
These race -baiters, are creating environments of distrust among people using terms like that offends me and that stems from racism, often times these people are seriously grabbing at straws, in Newsweek and article was posted about the POW-MIA flag and how it was a symbol of racism and hate, though the article has been rescinded and an apology has been made by the author about it.
The fact that a public apology was made by the author proves my point, people are so easily offended a symbol of remembrance for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action has turned into a topic of racial debate.
So many people hate and are offended by so many things that a person cant leave the house with out doing six offensive things. Rangerup.com in response to all the offense taken about everything and by everyone posted this on their Facebook page, “It is easier to be offended then to construct a well-thought- out rebuttal to something you fundamentally disagree with. If your first instinct is to be offend, then chances are you’re not going to change the thing you are offend by…”
People throw around the word “offended” like its a get out of jail free card, they spark up a debate and once your argument starts making sense that magic word comes out and you are supposed to stop and automatically agree with them.
To quote a popular commercial,” that’s not how that works, that’s not how any of this works,” just because you are offended by something doesn’t make you special. It means that you are so wrapped up in yourself in a word and used it as a shield to protect yourself from getting your feelings hurt and you have created a new way of throwing around make believe power.
You know who cares that your offended people who rely on you, politicians, actors, and anyone else in the public eye. The only reason they care is they want your vote for their election or their Oscar or their new funding, that’s it. If you were to walk up to an average sane hardworking citizen and tell them you were offended they would laugh in your face.
So why don’t you stop saying you are offended and actually use your words and say why you want something changed take your feelings out of it. If you hate the war on terror fine hate the war on terror and if you hate the soldier fine hate the soldier, but acknowledge that the are willing to run in to the mouth of hell for what they believe in whether or not you believe it you have to admit that shows bravery. And the police officer that you hate so much that has to go home and look his family in the eye knowing that they might be the last time he sees them because when he goes into work tomorrow he might get killed or he might get filmed taking out a man trying to kill an innocent girl but because of the angle of the camera it doesn’t show the girl it just shows him taking out a man and he will go to jail for something he didn’t, think about that man and realize that he puts that uniform on and heads out against insurmountable odds just to protect you.
Think about all the things you hate. Think about all the things that offend you. And think about how insignificance the word offended is to the soldier that runs to the sound of gun fire, think about how meaningless it is to the police officer who just stopped a girl from being raped, and think about how pointless it is that you say it because you are standing behind your hurt feeling. While they are standing up for you.