I’m not in a good mood. My congestive heart failure symptoms are giving me fits today. Weight is up, chest hurts, didn’t sleep. I thought I’d take it easy, not write any political posts, just kind of unplug.

I even, for the most part, just blew off the right-wing posts I was seeing, regardless of how near-sighted, self-centered or just plain stupid they were.

And it was working just fine, until someone decided to turn a post about how to fix Facebook settings into an attack on the left, and Christians on the left in particular.

Don’t ask me why, but it set me off. Maybe my filters are just off today. Maybe I’m just tired of the hypocrisy. Maybe my inner asshole decided it needed to come up for air. Whatever it was, I had a rage come up that made my blood boil. Not a great idea for a guy with a bad ticker.

I let loose on the individual in question, but the anger, the rage is still there. And since writing is my way of making sure I don’t go looking for a bar fight, I decided to get it out. So, if you’re still reading, be prepared – I’m about to vent. As in radioactive steam release vent.

I’m usually fairly mild mannered in my writing. I don’t usually drop the f-bomb. So if that word offends you, feel free to go look for cute kitten pictures now. Because I’m fucking pissed.

Why? Let’s start a little list, shall we?

For example, don’t rail against sharia law, and how Muslims are going to somehow circumvent the Constitution and how you have to pass laws to ensure it never happens, then turn around and tell us that the country should be ruled by your God’s law first, and the Constitution second.

Don’t tell me you defend the Constitution then work to dismantle every bit of it you don’t like.

Don’t find some reason to turn any discussion, no matter how mundane, into an attack on your religion, then turn around and try to tell me you know the difference between a “Christian” and a Christian, just because they don’t agree with everything you say. Or question the faith of the President of the United States.

Don’t tell me you’re all for the civil rights and equality for everyone and then argue against women’s reproductive rights, the rights of homosexuals to marry, or the right of a Muslim church to build a mosque in which to pray.

Don’t rail against Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and the rest of the right-wing blowhards and then ignore it when Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Bill Maher say something equally as offensive.

And don’t dare bring me the fucking “They do it too” excuse. Don’t. It only shows how stupid you are and how stupid you think I am.

Don’t talk to me about how you represent “the 99%” and then break into buildings. Here’s a clue genius – 99% of people don’t think someone who is breaking the law represents them. Peaceful, persistent protest, yes. Doing shit that is intended to aggravate “the man”, like hurling things at the police or through windows? Not a chance.

Here’s another clue: There really is supposed to be a separation of church and state. You deciding there isn’t doesn’t change history or the Constitution. I’m an agnostic, have been for most of my life. Your ardor for your faith does not give you the right to force me to bend to your beliefs. See “sharia law”.

Oh, and by the way, the 1st Amendment protects you from the government stifling your free speech. It doesn’t protect you from the consequences of voicing your asinine beliefs.

For those who haven’t figured it out, things like Unemployment Insurance and Social Security aren’t “entitlements”. If I paid my money into the system, they were an investment. If your investments are so fucking precious, how about treating these investments with the same amount of care, rather than raid them to fatten your damned offshore Cayman Islands bank accounts.

Don’t tell me it’s too easy to get welfare or assistance, then tell me that I can’t get any medical insurance or food assistance because my disability insurance pays me too much. And my rent is more than half of what I get.

Don’t rail against the President about gas prices (regardless of political stripe) but tell me oil companies need continued subsidies. And don’t tell me gas prices are about supply and demand when we have a surplus and prices are still climbing. Meanwhile, speculators are laughing their asses off as we have to make decisions about whether we eat or put gas in the car. Think that’s an exaggeration? I made that exact decision yesterday.

Don’t tell me that climate change and evolution are “controversial theories”, but insist that “creationism” or “intelligent design” are sound scientific hypotheses.

Don’t tell me about defunding organizations like Planned Parenthood and remove access to birth control, then rail against abortion because of unwanted pregnancies. And when you talk about womens’ pregnancies in terms of barnyard animals I have two words for you: Fuck. Off.

Don’t talk to me about how a racist can’t be a racist because he’s not actually a caucasian while a family buries their young son because he had the temerity to walk back from 7-Eleven with Skittles and iced tea. And don’t even defend the very same racist  who is heard saying “fucking coons” on a 911 tape when the kid he followed, who he vastly outweighed ended up with a hole in his chest from the gun that was fired in “self-defense”.

And you better not try to tell me that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. No, stupid fucking people with access to guns kill people. And no, genius, that doesn’t mean I want to take away your guns. It means there are responsible ways to control who has a gun and when they can have it on them, and if your excuse for carrying it is the Second Amendment, your reading comprehension in terms of the Constitution is embarrassingly low. Look up the definition of “well-regulated militia”, and I’m pretty sure you ain’t it. And it doesn’t give you the right to carry a bazooka like an extension of your johnson. You don’t need a fucking AK-47 to hunt rabbits, moron.

The next person who uses the term “race card” in my presence may get a well-placed fist in the puss. Racism is racism, and I don’t care who is guilty of it. And guess what? It’s out there, uglier than ever. And if you’re black, and you see something that was racist against a black, it’s ok to call it out. And I expect you’ll call out racism against whites, hispanics and Asians. Just like I expect all of them to do the same. Same with anti-Semitism. I don’t care the race, creed or religion of the person being racist. If it’s wrong it’s wrong.

And don’t – don’t - defend a racist remark by trying to redefine it. The word “nigger” is not defined as someone who is lazy or slothful. It’s a derogatory term derived from the mispronunciation of “negro”. So using your definition of it to excuse a bumper sticker that says “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012″ isn’t fooling anyone. If you’re going to be racist, at least have the decency of wearing your fucking hood so we can see you more easily.

Speaking of hoods, wearing a hoodie and jeans isn’t supposed to be a death sentence. And then turning around and saying that the reason a kid got killed was his choice in clothing is the epitome of stupidity and blatant idiocy. Maybe the problem is the perception that someone wearing a hoodie is automatically a thug, you fucking gasbag.

And no, there isn’t a “liberal media bias”. There is a bias to what makes money. Fox is focused on the right because Murdoch realized he could make a buck there. Liberals don’t watch as much TV. If they did, he’d try to suck that market dry too. CNN, MSNBC, and all the rest – they aren’t journalism anymore. They are reporters. They repeat what they’re told and fuck the truth. It’s waht they can get you to watch that’s importannt. How the hell else do you justify nearly 30 Republican debates with the same questions asked over and over and over again, like there was any real chance of the answer changing.

Another clue for some of you – just because Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul call it “gotcha journalism”, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t answer the damned question. If you are asked a question about something you said, it’s your own damn fault for saying it. Blaming the person asking the question and calling it a gotcha question means you realize you opened your fucking mouth when you shouldn’t have, and now you don’t want to have to answer for it. Shut up, and either back your statement or recant it. But asking you about something you said isn’t “gotcha journalism”. It’s follow-up.

Oh, and you rocket scientists on the “professional left”… Just because you had some unrealistic fantasy that the President would fix eight years of backward, destructive policies within 90 seconds of taking office doesn’t mean the rest of us had the same stupid expectation. And the most ridiculous thing you do is then decide you’re going to punish the one guy who actually has gotten things moving in the right direction by not voting for him, or trying to weaken him. Result? You allowed the guys who fucked things up for eight years to gain back the House so they could proceed to spend two years doing nothing but get in the way. Awesome plan. What’s next? Tell folks on the left they should vote for Romney ’cause he’s no different? Oh, right, some of you have already done that. Idiots.

Here’s another thing – shut the fuck up about family values while you’re on your third wife, screwing hookers while you’re in diapers, having sex with Congressional pages or trying to have an illicit homosexual hookup in an airport bathroom while claiming you’re straight. You’re all bunch of hypocrites. And don’t give me the bullshit that the media only covers the screwups on the right because of the bias. They cover the screwups on the right because the right claims to be the arbiters of what are “true family values”. The left doesn’t make that claim, so when they screw up, it’s less of a deal. If the right didn’t spend so much time acting like they were the pristine vestal virgins they want everybody to believe they are, it wouldn’t be as big a deal when they screw up. Bill Clinton got blowjobs in the Oval Office, and they moved to impeachment. Vitter does hookers while wearing a diaper, and he’s still getting voted in. Gingrich is on his third wife – having cheated on the first two – and he’s still running for office. So tell me again, where’s the bias?

I also can’t fathom how the guys who are so concerned about voter fraud can’t even count votes properly in their own caucuses.  They can’t complete a simple primary without accusations of voter fraud within their own people. Maybe that’s why they’re so afraid someone else will do it, even though there is no credible evidence that it happens.

But probably the one thing that really, really pisses me off is the willful, even spiteful ignorance of facts. As the saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, even your own conclusion. But you are not entitled to your own facts. Rather than pursue fact and deal with issues based on those facts, there is a culture of simply throwing out conjecture and outright falsehoods and treating them as fact. That’s the willful ignorance. But the spiteful ignorance is when you present the facts, and instead of addressing the facts, the subject gets changed. Can’t win with your argument? Change the argument!

Along a similar line is the incessant use of a straw man argument, based on nothing but hot air. Sure, we all occasionally make an argument based on a misunderstanding of information. But in those cases, most of us, when presented with contradictory facts, will at least concede that we need to do more investigation. That’s perfectly ok – we all have the right to change our minds or be more educated. No, what I get really torqued about are the people who make stuff up out of thin air, and when you call them on it – ask for proof – they move on to the next lie, the next fabrication. They never retract a thing, they never acknowledge the facts in front of them. They just move on to the next piece of bullshit. So why does this piss me off the most? Because these people are the same ones that will demand an unending chain of proof for anything you say, and when you provide it, they’ll still call you the liar, and complain the truth is “manufactured”.

Just stop. Please. It’s bad for my heart to get this pissed off. And you guys are working too hard at it.

There. I got it off my chest. Do I feel better? No. But I’ll have to deal with the fact that sometimes, you can’t fix stupid.