The sky is green.
No, really. You may think the sky is blue, there may be so much experimental data showing that the sky is blue that the scientific community accepts it as near fact, 99.7% of people may testify that the sky is blue, but that makes no difference, because I say the sky is green, and nothing is more important than MY! OPINION!, and MY! OPINION! is unchangeable.
People like that infuriate me. Obviously, I have no issue with people who hold strong opinions, I hold pretty strong opinions myself. The issue I have is with those people who are so invested in their opinions that fact and logic cease to matter. These are the people who, when confronted with information that contradicts a previously held belief, refuse to amend their belief system but instead discard the information, like someone driving 100 mph toward a cliff, staunchly believing that the road continues on.
I enjoy a good debate, and I am reasonably good at it. Unfortunately, lately I have encountered more people like this than those interested in an actual conversation about an issue. I encounter this thinking all over, like the women who insist that all fat people are only fat because they are lazy and eat twinkies all day, who dismiss evidence to the contrary out of hand, or the Huckabee fan who insists that Obama is Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, actual biography and statistics be damned. Attempting to debate with such a person is like trying to punch Jello. With glass shards.
My conclusion: I have to learn to let people live with their own ignorance. I expect others to respect my right to choose to watch Buffy the Vampire slayer or eat chocolate, so I need to respect their right to choose to remain uninformed and closed-minded. It’s a good thing I teach, so I can have some relief of that urge to impart information, and to a captive audience, at that.
Muahahahahaha.
