Odd Guilty Opinions

Ever been in a situation in which you like all the people involved but they say stuff that sends you over the edge but you just keep your mouth shut because why spoil the mood or discourage a friendship and you wonder why they don't find some particular phrase as tired, trite and stupid and almost condescending as you do?

Well I have.  And the phrase that seems to have resurfaced lately is "You go, girl!"   hate that phrase.  Would anyone ever say, "You go, boy!"  in the same context?  If they did would it sound really dumb?  It just doesn't quite get it.

It is not that I think the go girl is any less than anyone else.  I guess it automatically has the feel of a gender battle, and it comes up when go girl is just doing something cool.

You go girl sounds like you're either saying, "Hey not bad!!!...for a girl", or hey you sure showed those stupid Mr Man mens that they suck and you are girl power and down with boys, beaatch!

Either case is annoying to me.  And that's the deal.  I feel guilty because lots of people just love to say "you go girl!".  To get just the right intonation, inflection and pacing is an art.  They should have "You go girl!" contests for who says it just right in that way that makes one want to tie their tent stakes to a bull elephant and let him run amok and ruin their campsite.

The only problem is, they would have done the contest twenty years ago when the phrase first hit the scene, if they were going to do it.   It is passé, I thought.  And I was glad.   Then I all of a sudden see it here and see it there, and I worry, "Is this the final straw that breaks the camel's back?" ( The camel's back being my sanity, my ability to stay this side of that famous Edge).

It is heartbreaking because I know nice people who said or wrote the phrase with pure hearts and happy intentions.  That is so bad.  It means they've been infused with just a tad bit of the cultural koolaid which makes the group think things, appreciate things, that they'd reject as nonsense without the influence of the group.

If the Go Girl is really on a roll, maybe making headway on enzyme research, or successfully blowing the whistle on corruption in federally funded science, for example---purely hypothetical made-up examples--and you say, "You go, girl!", somehow you've limited her accomplishment or formidability to something related to, or confined within her sex.  How stupid is that?

It's like people who cannot order breakfast without finding a way to make it a great racial divide and issue.  It's buying into the politics of condition of birth; race, sex, ethnicity, etc.  Either you believe in universal values and virtues, or you don't.  Universal applies across the board and across time.  Race, sex, and all that are not moral values. Not intellectual accomplishments or talents.  Those things are not a measure of character.

So, I feel guilty because I cringe at "you go girl", and I cringe when I read or hear people talk about "stopping climate change".  You cannot stop climate change.

Oh geez.  I don't even bother to argue any more.  How can any thinking person actually believe that taxes are the mother of invention?  Taxing carbon is not really the big answer.  It was heavy handed government "partnerships" that have retarded the development of what is mis-named "alternative energy sources" in the first place.  I was pals with people in the '70s who were buried alive by government directives and nonsense for their  efforts to develop independent, cleaner, better, cheaper energy sources.

By labeling things as "alternative energy", then picking and choosing which companies to subsidize, all they do is lock in a new variation of the status quo.  That's what happenes when government ignores its responsibility to protect the citizens and their endeavors against force and fraud, and instead micro manage the economy, and create myriads of regulations designed by those who put the lawmakers in power.

Anyway, I cringe at a lot of planet talk, earth day talk, and you go girl talk.  It is nice to see the latest purveyors of government subsidized alternative energy tout the virtues of localized power generation as opposed to the heavily centralized infrastructure we now have, as if that is a new idea.

The philosophical forerunners of such people are the same ones who have been in the way of those who privately tried to make energy much cheaper and much more localized and independenat long ago.

The same people who thought governmental control and micro-management of the direction of innovation and R&D, and use of resources,  was the best answer then, still think so now.  All these non-scientists telling us what "science" says.

That is how it is.  I feel guilty because so many of the people I really like are all up in the koolaid induced chanting frenzy and perception of reality.  But they are doing better than I am.

So, maybe I'm wrong but I don't think learning to like You Go Girl will bring me companionship, security, or peace.

It bugs me, that's all I know.

I wish Go Girl would turn and say, "No, you go.  I'm staying put.  Who are you to tell me to go?  You go."