Laughing at Conservatives – Thoughts from February 26, 2023

This happened at the beginning of February, but I thought I’d talk about it before February runs out. Patti and I were grocery shopping and an older gentleman was walking around with a blazer on making him look like a professor at a college. For all I know, he was. As he walked by us, I could see he had a reusable bag in his hand. Along with an American flag, it had Ronald Reagan written in bold letters on it. I looked at Patti and I could see she saw the bag by the look on her face. I erupted into laughter and was almost hoping the guy heard me. He either didn’t hear me or didn’t care if I laughed at him. I knew the image of that guy would be the new image I saw when I thought about someone who is out of touch with the real world. To remind you, this was in the year 2023. Reagan died in 2004. He was last President back in 1989. It’s been 19 to 34 years since he has even been conversationally relevant. This is all beside what a horrible President he was. We thought it couldn’t get more absurd than having an actor as President. Admittedly, Trump made Reagan look not so bad.

Just after that incident, Patti and I were shopping in another grocery store and the cashier was telling people, “Have a blessed day.” I had to ask Patti if that’s what she actually said and she confirmed it. I don’t know if the cashier was clueless that there was a problem with saying that to customers or she was challenging anyone who has a problem with it. Perhaps she was looking to start a lawsuit to protect her American right to practice her religion wherever she damn well pleased. It’s funny how you don’t know whether she’s an idiot or an A-hole. The main thing I know is she’s not a good person. A good person cares about other people regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof.

Speaking of religion, I’ve listened to several books recently in which people talked about going to a private school. Eventually, they mention it is a Catholic private school. It happened in so many books, I knew private school meant Catholic private school. They always introduced the school as a private school and only later revealed it was a Catholic school. I gave them the benefit of the doubt at first. I thought the private school could be a special school for really smart students. The only difference between them and public schools is being able to teach things that are no longer taught in public schools in ways that are no longer allowed in public schools. They cost more than public schools and turn out students who learn that Catholicism is not for them. Many of the people who went to these schools were not Catholic to begin with. This is mainly an East coast thing, so that’s probably why I didn’t hear about it earlier. I went to a public school in California. I knew nothing of this private East coast world.

I was listening to a book talking about the beginnings of comedy from vaudeville to when Robin Williams died. The book must have come out shortly after Robin’s death. I don’t think it was insinuating his death meant the end of comedy. It mentioned the mob’s influence on night clubs and how censors restricted language for mainly religious reasons. Some of the worst groups or organizations in history have religious origins. Catholics were part of the mob, Christians belonged to the KKK and Nazis, extremist followers of Islam made up Isis, Mormons practiced polygamy, and isolationist religious groups formed all cults. Even drug culture has a spiritual (religious) connection. Religion and comedy don’t mix. (Future note: I originally took this paragraph out because of religious content. I’m trying to separate my anti-religious views from these Thoughts papers, but I decided to reword it instead. Yes, there were even more extreme words than what you read above. I was merely pointing out how religion and comedy are opposites. Comedy points out humorous realities about life, and religion ignores or denies reality. Happy Holidays!)