Too many narrow-minded people

[Peckle]

I just got out of two extremely close-minded people, who are my friends. One of them, was about polotics, she refused to see something different from what her parents tell her, which happen to be the republican veiws. Now, I am more democrat than republican, but my mom is pretty right-winged. My other friend's dad is pretty left-winged, so I've heard both sides of it. Now, I don;t know much on micheal moore, but I have seen about half of bowling for columbine. My friend, Kelly, is convenced that he is "butthole" yet all she knows about him are other people's opinions. Keep in mind, she hates it when people judge her without knowing her, yet this is exactly what she is doing. Then we started talking about the war, I strongly disagree with almost all wars. She is convenced that every war that has been declared has solved a big problem and none of it whatsoever is going on any more. Yeah, there isn't slavery in the US anymore, but there are people who still want it. There are still nazis, they just don't have much power, but they are existant still. There are hippy-communist camps. Everyone isn't happy about the topic, so I think it's not solved. She thinks the war is doing alot of good, and yeah it might be capturing terrorist, but they didn't do anything to us and we have pretty much no allies. Now, we were attacked by osama bin ladin, but we "couldn;t find him." So, instead of looking for a 6'5" man with a cable sticking into him, let's attack a country that could be making weapons of mass destruction. And I don't mean Korean who openly admits to doing so, but Iraq because "them dang arabs is lookin shady". Now, I know Sadam is a bad man, and people were scared, and people thought he could be like hitler. But, how come the majority of the other countries don't see it enough to declare war on him. I personally think that oil played some role in that, but maybe not the whole thing. I think Bush ( ) used the was to win a second term (people didn't want to take a new direction, even if it was from someone with war experiance). But, I'm getting carried away there. The 1st narrow-minded conversation was really just trying to let her hear a different side of something, not asking her to agree with it. Now, the second, one of my friends is friends with this kid I hate. Now, I'm not giving the in-depth reason to why I hate that guy. Last year on my little website thing I put in the top corner of a one page "shane's gay". I wasn;t trying to say anything there. I wasn't trying to offend him in anyway. I honestly couldn't care less about his sexual orientation. Now, he saw that and his first reaction is telling his parents they get mad and I'm told that they will print off the page and show it to my mom. My mom is well aware of everything there. Then he trys to make me feel stupid about it, now him being a complete moron (not trying to be mean, but he honestly isn't very smart, i know we all have varying intellects) but I completely turned it on him.Now he trys to leave notes on the thing saying stupid crap, but I have to accept them in order for it to show up. Now, I would take that off, if he would have taken the mature route, as in he just asked me to take it off. Now, that reveils to me that he isn't comfortable with his sexuality. No one is seriosuly questioning his sexuality, if he's homosexual, no big deal, if he;s hetrosexual no big deal. Yet he is so offended and he is such a homophobe. He was asked why he hates gay people and his response was "It's not the american way" even though this is the land of the free. Now the close-minded conversation with my friend about this was that there is appearntly one shane and one meaning of gay. Now, my question is, does this happen to anyone else?

Sorry if this came off narrow-minded on my side.

[melrich]

Of course everyone has different views about world events, values, how to live life etc. That doesn't necessarily mean they are narrow minded, they just have a different view to you.

 

As far as your website and what you wrote there. well I really don't understand that. You ppost on it that someone is gay (someone who knows you are referring to them) and tehn you are surprised they get upset about it?

 

I wasn;t trying to say anything there. I wasn't trying to offend him in anyway. I honestly couldn't care less about his sexual orientation.

 

What exactly were you trying to say by posting "Shane's Gay"?

 

You have to realise, no matter how untrue something like that is, the tag sticks. People start to subconsciously think that Shane's gay. I can understand why he is upset.

[Peckle]

I kinda see what you mean. But it's not that they weren't seeing it my way, it's that they wouldn't give my way or other people who disagree's way a chance to really understand. I origanally put the "Shane's gay" there out of boredem, and I was going to take it off once I thought of something to fill that space. And not many people call shane gay, because he couldn't just take it as lightly as everyone else, so they just stopped. And I also don't understand how calling someone gay is an insult. And yeah, I do somewhat see why he is mad, but it's that he couldn't just ask me to that off polietly, at all at that. Now after a while, if things remain quiet with him trying to leave offensive comments on my site, then I will probably take it off, but about every other month he trys it.

[melrich]

Referring to someone as gay is not an insult if,

 

1. They are gay.

2. They are comfortable with being known as gay.

 

You should remove this reference immediately from your website. It is not up to him to ask politely. You were in the wrong posting it in the first place and it is up to you to rectify that and I would suggest offer him an apology for writing it.

[blueangel]

I was discouraged in reading all of that but I will reply to the war thing-

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that, "evil is just a stage in the evolution of the good."

 

War may have not solved everything but until we bring unity into our nations, into our world... then people are bound to do "evil" things. Sometimes drastic measures have to go towards drastic causes. How could we have stopped Hitler? How could we have stopped slavery?

 

Sure, racism still exists but we are working against it (altho the media isnt helping much) with programs being spread round the generation, round the world so that we can prevent having to go to war again. And yes I do believe under the circumstances, we HAD to go.

 

This is why I dont believe in right or wrong because no one "right" works for all situations. Where is it we are trying to go? We must focus on what needs to be done to get there rather so much on the morals behind it. Morality will grow as our culture, our world does. Morals are too much of a debatable thing... and debating them accomplishes nothing.

 

Even though you may disagree with many choices our nation has made (hey- even I do) you cant deny how much progress we have made to getting to where we are going. It's going to take a lot more until there is unity among the nations and even after that.

 

Sticking to beliefs does not mean you are narrow minded. In fact, you are more narrowed minded if you chose to accept and agree with everything you hear. Ignorance is another thing and that is to not listen to beliefs merely because you dont want to know... you have to be right.

 

According to what I have read, you havent done much of just listening if you're getting so defensive over such a thing. Accept the possibilty that either of you could be wrong and since such a thing cannot truly be proven when it comes to opinions, you are wasting your breath trying to prove yourself right. Instead of defending your point of view, change your objective to understand another's first and consider it. This is real listening and real listeners know that when a belief is stemmed from feelins, it is best to EXCHANGE what you experience instead of again- trying to prove who is right. Get your priorities straight- what's more important? Friendship or pride?

[blueangel]

If Shane being gay didnt matter to you then why were you trying to draw attention to it?

 

You know homosexuality is considered a controversial issue and it's going to only cause chaos towards Shane. That was childish of you to do that so carelessly.

 

Did people need to know this? I'm not saying that everything you know should be kept a secret but out of respect towards the person you know something about, you should really keep it to yourself.

 

It was not your place to be the one to spread this. You crossed the line. True friends dont tell unless they are told to and even if he wasnt your friend, that still says a lot about you.

[Peckle]

Well, what was really bothering me about the whole thing is that they wouldn't see it any other way, not nessicarily agreeing with me. But I think "ignorance" may have got my meaning out a bit more. And, for the record I didn't really get defensive with them, i just got kinda carried away writing about it... But it's just that they felt like they were "right" and there was no possible way they could be wrong, but then we just decided to not tak about it anymore to avoid getting mad.

[Peckle]

Ok, I wasn't trying to draw attention to him, in fact it's kinda hard to read in a pretty unnoticed spot. And i posted this on here because I felt like I needed someone to talk to but I had no one to.

[blueangel]

Tell him that then

 

Ok, I wasn't trying to draw attention to him, in fact it's kinda hard to read in a pretty unnoticed spot. And i posted this on here because I felt like I needed someone to talk to but I had no one to.

[blueangel]

Sure... Miss. (or Mr? lol sry dont know) Defensive once again.

 

And you DONT think you're right? It's ok if you feel you are but keep in mind that the truth can be revealed many times over and over and there is always another parrallel to consider.

 

Say this to your friend, "I'll accept the possibility that you may be right if you accept the possibility that I may be too." This is always the best way to open a discussion and so since she agreed, you get to call her off if she's being way too defensive.

 

Good luck

 

 

Well, what was really bothering me about the whole thing is that they wouldn't see it any other way, not nessicarily agreeing with me. But I think "ignorance" may have got my meaning out a bit more. And, for the record I didn't really get defensive with them, i just got kinda carried away writing about it... But it's just that they felt like they were "right" and there was no possible way they could be wrong, but then we just decided to not tak about it anymore to avoid getting mad.

[Peckle]

tell him I wasn't trying to draw attention to him? I would, but the friend that I had the conversation about it with has already done that, his response was blocking me on the instant messenger thing.

 

Well, I don't feel I'm wrong, but not exactly right either. But that is good advice, thanks.

[Peckle]

Referring to someone as gay is not an insult if,

 

1. They are gay.

2. They are comfortable with being known as gay.

 

You should remove this reference immediately from your website. It is not up to him to ask politely. You were in the wrong posting it in the first place and it is up to you to rectify that and I would suggest offer him an apology for writing it.

 

Are you aware that the defination of gay is happy? For all you know I was simply just saying he is happy, since most of the time he is in a pretty good mood. And, he has never asked me to take it off, all he's said directly about it was "my mom is mad about that", if he asks me I might do it. Might.

[melrich]

That is a very disingenuous reponse.

 

So what you really meant was Shane is happy?

 

Have you told him and your friends that is all you meant? How did they respond? Did they believe you?

[Peckle]

I wasn't calling shane happy, I will admit, but I also wasn't saying he is a homosexual, all I was doing was filling an empty space on that web page. It would have been gone long ago if he hadn't tryed to scare me out of it being there.

[blueangel]

I can see you really do have a good heart, even underneath your defensiveness.

 

I am sorry for being so judgemental. I crossed the line there. That was hypocritical to judge while also trying to get you to see that there IS no right or wrong.

[Peckle]

Blueangle, it's cool.

[blueangel]

hehe

 

It's kewl, ya'll, it's keeewl. 0X

 

sorry- went into my own little head world