Fundamentalist Right-Wing Extremist

(I would have to thank SlapShotSal for giving me inspiration for this blog post)

This Miss USA/Miss California controversy continues to flare up. And now, of course Hollywood has to get into the act. It has to be the most liberal of all communities has to go on record and make fun of the answer that Carrie Prejean gave. (Here is the story. As an aside, I’m glad that Alicia Silverstone has found some acting work since “Clueless”.) But they have the right, remember that in 2004 they stood on stage with John Kerry and said that they were the voice of America. Really? So it stands to reason that they would voice their opinion and claim that what they believe is what is right for America. I’ve written about my dislike for Hollywood before, so I’m not going to rehash that, but this brings up an interesting point that I discussed on Twitter yesterday.

What I want to talk about for this post has to do with beliefs. Sal, Burton and I had a giant twitter storm (number of tweets, not anger) going on about how no matter what position we take on a topic we get labeled with a tag. I’ll start with the silly and move to the serious ones.

If I say I prefer the Xbox 360 over the PS3, and make the most convincing reason for it, I’m a 360 fanboy. Why? Is it because I HATE the PS3? No, it could be because I play the 360 10 times more than any other console I have played in my entire life (that includes the NES and Atari). But because I like the 360, that makes me an Xbox 360 fanboy. WRONG! I like it because it better, that’s why!

I sometimes wonder what people would have labeled me after I took the Pepsi Challenge if the internet were around in the 80’s. I know what I would have heard: I’m a Pepsi Fanboy. I like the taste of Pepsi over Coke because I’m a fanboy, not because I absolutely hate the taste of Coke. No, it’s because I’m a Pepsi fanboy.

Do you guys really want me to talk about the one controversy that I constantly put up with? Yeah, it’s the Star Wars versus Star Trek. Well, I’m a Star Wars fan...if you couldn’t already tell that. Reason: I don’t believe in the utopian society that Star Trek is representative of. Star Wars: it’s the melting pot (American has been called the melting pot in the past).

Now let’s get serious. If you like Mel Gibson and his movies, you’re an anti-Semite bigot. If you don’t agree with what Obama does in the White House, you’re a racist bigot. If you agree with Carrie Prejean, you’re a homophobic idiot that Hollywood will make lampoon. You can’t have an opinion in this world anymore, and if you do, you’re wrong and possibly one of the above.

These days, though, not only can you be labeled on the internet for being vocal and opinionated. You can now be labeled as a threat to the United States. This is one label that can stick. If you don’t know what I am talking about, the Homeland Security Secretary placing a footnote that at least implied that soldiers that come home from Iraq and Afghanistan could be “extremists”. Yes, that does only apply to soldiers returning from war, but what about a memo that hasn’t been leaked that states people on message boards are extremists. Or tags people who blog as extremists? Where does it stop?

I’ve never been afraid to give my opinion, because I was raised to have beliefs and not be afraid to tell someone what they are. I am that way and I will continue to be that way. But we live in a world today, where we don’t have the right to view the world from a certain perspective and if we do, we could be labeled as a fundamentalist right-wing extremist.