I have to apologize in advance for the nature of this ramble. It isn't thought out or well prepared. There is no rough draft. This is thought to page. This is a rant. Plain and simple. I almost didn't get to writing it at all. As you probably know by now, since I won't shut up about it, I've been "fighting the good fight" against a continuing depressive patch and the urge to go antisocial. I feel unmotivated about basically everything right now. I had actually decided that I was going to skip the ramble this week. I was going to post a journal saying that I'd probably be offline for a few days, and that there'd probably be no ramble. However, I never got to posting that journal, to "giving notice." And now that it's already Thursday morning, to not post something would feel like a cop out, like a dereliction of duty. Like I said before, this is a rant. There is no other way to say it. I am not in a pleasant mood right this instant, and it shows.

So, here I sat, with no motivation, and no topic. The solution? I trawled the internet. (And yes, I mean trawl, not troll.) I trawled some of my least favorite places on the web. It didn't take long to remind me of why I abhor those sites, or rather the people on them. I spent some time reading comments on YouTube, something I never advise. I spent a while in the forums on IMDB, reading posts from people who prefer gore to plot. I wandered an old haunt on YahooAnswers, and listened to the Atheists and Catholics both behave like idiot children. I stepped into the muck on AboveTopSecret, a site that can make me ashamed to believe in the paranormal. I swam in the cesspool of human filth and congealed obscenities, barely masked for society's consumption, and laid bare on the internet for the world to see. This is our great civilization. This is our glorious culture. This is the human race. Mankind, the idiot children. A species of narcissistic hedonists who can't be bothered to even learn to spell or type. People who believe that they're infallible, that their word is truth. People who don't understand the difference between opinion and fact. People who think that having a different taste in music or film is a symptom of a mental handicap. Atheists who believe the best way to respond to demonizing and harassment is to demonize and harass. Religious believers who think the best way to save a soul is to yell "agree with me or go to hell!" Anti-Intellectuals who think they're better than the "elitist" intelligentsia. People who believe that all politicians and bankers are shape-shifting blood-drinking reptilian aliens who just happen to be from the Draco constellation and a different dimension. Those very same people, who call the rest of us "sheeple," say we are deluded fools who deserve no respect, and claim to be better than the "evil overlords." That's it, right there! That's the recurring theme! Can you see it?

Everyone is always right, and they know it. Everyone who disagrees is either underdeveloped or evil. Everyone is the oppressed minority. Everyone behaves like the tyrant. That's the pattern. I've observed it time and time again, on the internet, in politics, in religion, in war, in everyday life. Both sides of a disagreement engage in the exact same tactics, but claim they're different and better. The opinion may be different, but the behavior is the same.

I just don't understand it. I honestly don't. What's the point? Why even bother going out of your way to ruin someone's day? Why take the time to type "ur ret@rd3d" in the comment box? Why cross the barroom to heckle someone different? Am I any better than this, sitting here in my corner and whining? Probably not, but at least I know how to keep it where it belongs. It's true that I sometimes get caught in a fight I should've ignored, but I can sit here in my little blog and complain all I like, and I'm not forcing anyone to read it. There are times and places for discussion, argument, and debate, but there is never a time to sacrifice sense and civility. We claim to be civil, to be moral, to be ethical, so let's be what we say we are.

Humankind, we say we're better than this. We're supposed to be better than this. So let's be better.