Am I alone, or does anyone else scour the internet and social media in order to find the answers to the everyday questions that trouble us all? I'm not considering the mundane stuff here, like what is the capital city of Ecuador, what garden vegetables make the best companion crops or how many hit songs did John Fogarty write. We all do that, right?
No, I'm searching these days for a narrower scope of things, the important matters such as: What is the likelihood that former President Donald Trump committed seditious treason? What did Utah's Mike Lee actually do for a living before he became an embarrassment of a U.S. senator? And if he were alive today, where is the likelihood greater that Jesus would find a fellow Christian—at a University of Utah tailgate party or at a Republican Party caucus meeting?
That last one is too easy. Everyone knows Jesus is a Ute fan—I just Googled it for personal reassurance because the world sure is topsy-turvy these days, and occasional reminders that not all ships are sinking is a good thing.
I have not once, not ever, tried to speak for Jesus, nor do I pretend to. I figure that since Utah surrounds me with so many people who do that constantly, and that so many of them often come off as supreme jerks, I'd rather not join in their cacophony.
When someone publicly invokes God or Jesus these days, it usually causes two reactions in me: 1. that I measure them up, find out what church they belong to, then make a mental note to not become a member of that church; and 2. that I look around at the mess such people continuously cause by behaving in diametric opposition to the teachings they proclaim to endorse and then use Google to find a nice camping spot where I can build a fire and open me up some Bud Light beers.
I see now there's a ruckus about Bud Light. A whole bunch of people have decided to boycott the brand because Bud Light made a friendly gesture to the transgender community. Oh, the horrors!
What Bud Light did was make a video featuring the face of Dylan Mulvaney on a single can—yes, one can—and you'd think the world was at an end, with every righteous phony in America claiming that Bud Light was grooming kids and endorsing a lifestyle they don't approve of and neither does Jesus. So, they quit buying Bud Light.
Those same folks, though, didn't seem to mind that in the 1990s, Bud Light made a slew of commercials that poked fun at men in drag who were sneaking into taverns dressed as women in order to partake of ladies night specials on Bud Light or that, in another commercial, made not-so-subtle references to anal sex. If you can put down your lusty Instagram hamburgers-on-parade photos long enough, look it up on your internet device.
Why no uproar back then? Well, for starters, if you're too damned stupid to tell the difference between reality and a TV or YouTube commercial (did beloved Bud Light mascot Spuds MacKenzie squat or raise a leg to pee? Yeah, that was a controversy), then you're already lost. Plus, America lacked the supreme idiocy thrust upon us by the perpetually outraged folks in the Republican Party, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Those who find it comforting to discomfort the weak have it backward, at least according to what I always believed was the Jesus message. Times change over 2,000 years, I guess. Today's moralists just make noise and flit from one piece of outrage to the next.
Last month, it was Bud Light. Boycott!! Last week, it was Target. Boycott!!
I've never shopped at Target (that I know of), not for any reason except that I'm a terrible shopper. I really admire their logo, but I've never pulled in. However, these days, I'm inclined to get over there and spend a dollar. If they sell Bud Light, I'll get a twofer by supporting both.
It appears that all either Bud Light or Target did wrong was to offend people of unstable religious and moral conviction. What's next? Will the self-righteous be offended if a gay couple asks for a wedding cake at the wrong bakery, or maybe they'll hope to strike the Teletubbies from the small screen because Tinky-Winky was the color purple and had a triangle on his head?
Oh, wait. Those things already happened. So, not much has changed, has it? That's literal. Not much has changed. Neither baking cakes for gay couples nor the embracing of colorful (albeit creepy) creatures has produced a spike in the number of gay persons in our population.
It seems to be a glorious waste of energy to be pissed off at everyone all the time. I realize that bigots and miscreants cross all sections of American life and strata, from politics to religion to the workforce. However, isn't it clear by now that a single party has managed to cluster them into their own spitball of vitriol—the Republican Party?
Republicans used to stand for a strong America. Today's GOP is barely more than a suggestion box—a place to dump your weekly grievances and then shout to high heaven about how horrible your life is.
But they do win me over at times. Like this boycott thing—I think I'll join in, starting with this: I will never, not ever, join the Republican Party.
And with that, as with nearly all boycotts ... voila! Big deal, nothing happens. You can look it up, but pass me a Bud Light, first.
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