Ranting

I woke up a little early today, so I actually sat at the little coffee shop where I normally get my muffin for a while. I have a good rapport with the people there -- I always say good morning and whatnot, but I rarely stay there and take up a table. More often than not, to my shame, I eat my muffin in the car, plucking crumbs from inside the bag.
But today, I sat down, mixed three packets of Equal into my travel mug of Ethiopian Sidamo, and got out the newspaper. Well, almost as soon as I sat down, I heard three elderly men, the regulars, talking. I eavesdropped, as I am wont to do, and the first thing I heard was "If you whack your kid on the bottom, you'll get in all kinds of trouble with law enforcement, Child Protective Society [sic] and whatever else . . . " I could tell they were comparing corporal punishment to something else, but I couldn't tell what just yet. It didn't matter, though, because at that moment I was fighting the urge to say "Oh, what a load of bullshit!" Child Protective Services doesn't remove children from the household unless they're in pretty immediate, obvious danger of death (and right here River City, they just left a kid with a mom who admitted to hearing demon voices telling her they were going to kill her baby -- where did I hear about this? In the newspaper account of the infanticide). I personally don't believe in spanking children ("Hitting is wrong!" Whack "Don't hit"), and I know a lot of other people don't either, but generally the cops don't get involved over a spanking. You might get dirty looks in the grocery store, but a gentle, reminder whack on the butt is still not seen as a cause for intervention. So already I was a little on edge, when I caught the topic they were really on . . . the Supreme Court's ruling against a law that regulates internet pornography that might be "harmful to minors." Well, that seems fair, I'm against child pornography too, except, oh wait, that's not what it is about. The law considers all sorts of things possibly harmful to minors, like photographers' web sites that included a picture of a "post-pubescent female breast." Oh, gods, the horror! Do you mean to say we're not going to shut down web sites with artistic representations of breasts on them???? But, but our children might see!!!
I started thinking to myself, so this guy, this elderly guy at the coffee shop, says that if his child looked at pornography on the web, he'd be ticked and would "put a padlock" on the computer (I chuckled). But he thinks hitting kids is none of anybody's business. Breasts = bad, hitting = good. I think I'm glad I don't live in his world.
Then I took it a little further (probably further than necessary), and started thinking about those folks that protest against Planned Parenthood in junior high and high schools, but have no problem with the Pro-Life faction holding up signs of aborted fetuses outside of (sometimes) elementary schools. Cucumber with a condom on it = bad, bloody aborted fetus = good.
Ugh, I have to pay attention to my class now (their test is over), but rest assured, I'm fairly disgusted at the priorities evident in some conservative factions.