Excuse me, what?

Have you noticed how rude people are getting to be?

No? Have you been living in a cave? Because it seems like more people are getting to be more rude...or, as I have been known to put it, rude, crude, and socially unacceptable...every day.

This is especially true on the Internet. I know; big surprise.

I'd like to say that it's the anonymity that the Internet allows, but it isn't that. A lot of the rudeness that I've been running into is on Facebook (I've written about my FB complaints here before, especially the "If you don't post this you're [fill in the blank...evil, heartless, and so forth]) are put up with the poster's full, real name. But it isn't just that.

There's also the memes, which seem to pop up on my feed with ever-more regularity, that say, generally, "If you don't like my opinions, screw you."

Well, I have opinions too (you know that if you've read here very often), and I don't often care much if people don't agree with me. I'm used to that; many people don't agree with me most of the time, me being one of those horrible flaming liberals like I am.

But, you know what? I also don't feel the need to preface or follow any of my opinions with an explicit declaration that anyone who doesn't agree with me needs to go screw themselves. Because they are allowed to their opinion, too.

The thing that bothers me about these declarations is that the implicit message, as I read them, is: "My opinion matters, but yours doesn't because mine is the only really important opinion." I take exception to that, because opinions are like assholes...pretty much everyone has one, and unless you have special expertise in whatever your opinion pertains to, yours isn't any more valuable than mine is. And mine isn't any more valuable than yours.

I don't know. Maybe it's just because I'm in a foul mood generally today, but I've had it up to here with this sort of thing.

So...it's your turn. Who's being rude in your life? Have you had it up to here with the whole thing? Do you speak up, or do you back off so that you aren't perceived as being rude, as well?

I promise: I'll try to post something more positive tomorrow.