delicate sensibilities

A family member ("T") unexpectedly read my blog recently and contacted me to complain about an entry titled "give up". It is short, so I'll just repost it in all of its crude glory:

among all the things that take themselves seriously, is there anything more fuck-yourself-in-your-own-asshole-with-your-own-cock-and-complain-about-the-pain retarded than politics in the US? jesus ass-fucking-with-his-own-cock christ!

T said the entry showed "hatred and bigotry" towards the US and towards Christianity. Uh... no. The object of my scorn is clearly politics in the US. As I've said before, a group of people and the system that rules them are not the same, so I haven't shown hatred or bigotry towards the US. Nor have I shown hatred towards Christianity. I'm not cursing Jesus, I'm just using "Jesus ___ Christ" as a curse, as is quite common practice, e.g. "Ow I just hit my thumb with a hammer! Jesus fucking Christ, that hurts!!". I haven't shown bigotry, I've simply failed to show reverence. There's a difference between hostility towards a religion (which isn't necessarily bigotry by the way - I think I've been hostile towards religion in other entries without being bigoted) and simply refusing to embrace its sacred cows. So I think T is way off on that criticism.

T further said that "[t]his shows no respect or tolerance for the beliefs of others" which "shut[s] down any chance of a civilized debate on real issues." Now I'm not sure how many of my readers have mistaken a profanity-laced comparison of the US political process to a painful act of auto-erotic sodomization for an attempt to initiate a "civilized debate on real issues," but I'll clarify now: I was just pissed off and venting frustration. If you want to see my attempts to start a reasoned discussion, look through my other posts. There's lots there to talk about! Or, if having seen the tiny kernel of thought contained in my rant, you want to start a debate about self-inflicted damage and the political system, I'll gladly take part. I'll even be happy to keep my diction in line with your sensibilities.

What can kill a friendly debate is conflating irreverence with hatred and bigotry. If you want to have conversations about serious and emotional issues, it doesn't help to have a shut-down-the-conversation-because-of-perceived-disrespect system with a threshold so low that vocabulary trips the switch.