Do We Really Have A Right To Our Opinion?

Oregon is beautiful and that is not up for debate.

I’ve been thinking a lot about opinions lately.  It’s happening because we are entering our third solid year of daily political arguments about every imaginable topic.  It is a very unique time, where everyone expresses their views on a daily basis, or is at least expected to.  The cycle goes like this: Something happens. A media outlet reports on it.  Social media gets a hold of it immediately after that and millions of people decide how they feel about it at first blush.  Then, they post their feelings and get comments.  The comments become threads and arguments begin, and many times they have nothing to do with the inciting incident. That can happen 3-4 times a week.  Every week.

Buried within these comments and arguments are conversational ‘outs’.  They are ways to stop the back and forth and get back to the business of life.  A popular one is ‘well, everyone has the right to their own opinion’. It’s effective; if only that it is a cultural sign of an agreement to disagree and to end the day’s hostilities. I’m just not sure that’s true.  I don’t know if we mean it, or, I don’t know if we should mean it.

They certainly aren’t guaranteed in the constitution.  If you want to include opinions under free speech, that’s fair, but so is everything else.  You are constitutionally allowed to use racial epithets twenty-four hours a day, and call every woman you meet a bitch, but I don’t know if we’d all agree that falls under the umbrella of an implied right. There is an argument to be made about opinions and social acceptability apart from what’s guaranteed by law.

 We don’t accept racial and bigoted slurs because they are unwelcome.  Despite what the right wing says, political correctness did not begin out of a desire to destroy America. There was a line drawn in the sand that certain types of language were no longer acceptable. That’s pretty much it. We were denying specific groups of people a say in the way they were described or referred to.  It may seem petty to the average white guy but being referred to ‘colored’ was just not that awesome for African Americans.  Grown women were tired of hearing ‘honey’ in the workplace when they had been with a company for a couple decades. Language changes because the culture changes. The culture changes because people change.

I think it’s time to do the same with the unbridled expression of personal opinion.

Let’s not make some obvious misstep here. I don’t think we should interfere with thought, belief, or expression. That is as American as apple pie.  But, just like we try to be fair in our language, I think we should take a moment before we express our opinions.  Is it welcome?  Is it helpful? Why am I expressing this? Am I referring to the topic at hand or my own beliefs/biases? What is this opinion based upon?

Do I honestly know what I’m talking about?

We have all done this.  You get into it with someone and we all reach a point. It’s the point where we are about to step outside our realm of knowledge.  Or, it’s the point where the conversation is heated, and we are about to make it personal.  We realize we are in the wrong but now we are just fighting for the sake of fighting. As adults, we should all know how to say: “Yeah, I don’t know.” But our egos don’t let us. Most of the time we double down, and that’s when the friction begins.

And I say, that friction isn’t worth it.  That friction is what destroys relationships.  Mostly over nothing. It was a series of opinions that didn’t need to be expressed and for which you probably didn’t have much of a stake, anyway.  Now, your aunt blocks you on Facebook and your mom wants to know why.

Okay.

Hold on.

Do you see what I’m doing here?  I’m setting the table.  I’m anticipating arguments and cutting them off before you make your opinion about this essay.  It’s fair.  It’s somewhat professional.  It’s something you’d find on a blog post that would float around the internet for a while, attracting a few thousand readers.  A real think-piece. 

But that was not my intent.  I don’t want to be fair.  Not at the moment.

I just want dummies to stop talking.  I don’t know why we have entertained these dopes for so long.  We have freedom of speech as a people, but we can also control where and when the opinions are welcome. And if you are dumb, and you inhale all of your information from Fox News or blogs written by crazed narcissists, YOU SHOULDN’T TALK. If you have no formal education, you shouldn’t have opinions about topics that require one to understand.

If you are dumb, its okay.  You aren’t lesser than anyone else.  There’s been dumb people since the dawn of time.  But they shouldn’t make decisions or lend their two cents in every debate.  Why?  Because they’re dumb.

Dumb is the gateway for evil assholes as well.  They are the first in line to fall for moronic ideas like racial supremacy or hate or all that simple-minded horseshit.  You should live, thrive, be happy, enjoy yourself.  But most of the time, you shouldn’t talk.

The tough part is, dumb people don’t know they are dumb.  I know when I shouldn’t talk about something, because I’m not dumb.  When someone brings up math, I don’t talk.  I listen.  Why?  Because I am dumb when it comes to math, and anything I would have to say wouldn’t be helping.  If I’m quiet, I might learn something.

Besides, you aren’t fooling anyone. We’ve heard those ideas.  We know they are talking points. We know within seconds that you re bullshitting.  We know that your info is wrong or outdated.  We know that you’ve fallen for hype and spin, rather than science and fact.

If your loved one was going in for surgery, and the doctor had to have a conference with other specialists on the course of treatment, would you want the opinion of the guy who refills the vending machines?  The custodial staff?  Strangers in the waiting room?  They may have opinions on the matter, but do they count?

If you are building an addition to your home, does it matter what your gynecologist thinks?  How about the manager of the Baskin Robbins?  Taylor Swift?  Hell no.  You want carpenters, contractors, and people who know what they’re doing.

I have opinions about every damn thing too!  I have a blog! Still! In 2018!  I just don’t let every damn thing loose when I don’t know the topic very well. I have brains enough to know how a filter works.  I stick to what I know. You think I would chime in on #metoo?  Military families?  Bulimia? Anime? I don’t know shit about that stuff, so I shut the hell up.

I wish we would all do the same.

That’s what I really wanted to say: Shut up, dipshits.

The Hank's Guide Series Acknowledgements Page

             How it Happened

             I read Ready Play One. I had no interest in emulating a style or write about a dystopian future (In fact, just the opposite).  But, I could tell that Ernest Cline absolutely loved all the source material.  He thought about all these cool things that he loved, and made a story around them. I previously tried to write four novels, and finished two of them.  They sucked.  But something about this book got me to thinking.  I was writing blog posts about time travel and how much I’ve loved the genre since I was ten years old. Instead of immediately jumping in, I decided to take my time and make a list of everything I loved about time travel.  The scenes, the gadgets, the tropes, the clichés, the problems, the points of view.  All of it. 

             Then, I thought about point of view. There weren’t enough interest stories about time travel as a thing that happens to you.  It is usually from the point of view of the traveler and how he deals with the phenomena.  I wanted the main character to be an unknown lynch pin in world events, and go from there. So, instead of going back to kill Hitler, what if the story was about the art teacher that criticized him in school and turned his life in a different direction? What if you unknowingly set off a chain of events that you weren’t aware of? After I had that, I just kept going.  Time travel tropes from every movie I could think of are all over this, including how it is perceived from story to story.  It’s a fascinating subject because at present, it doesn’t exist.

             After that, the series is really about a relationship between the two main characters.  Book 1 they meet, Book 2 their relationship is in full swing, Book 3, they are becoming old farts together. I like a fast-paced book, so I cut out everything I hated about adventure stories. I wanted them lean, and that’s what I got.

             I started writing in the first place because I read Salinger and thought: “Shit, I could do this”.  Ego much?  It is a long, lonely, and mostly unrewarding process that I can’t stop.  But when I get to bundle the stories up and put them out there, it almost feels like I’m writing for a reason.

Acknowledgments

I have too many thoughts for a single acknowledgements page. I will have to do my best to encapsulate everything into an acknowledgments post.

             I must first thank my wife Amy for supporting my 1,000^th creative idea in the last 25 years. She helped at the beginning when I was setting all of this up, even though she has zero interest in time travel.  I have to thank Jo James for reading Book 1 and giving me feedback, as well as creating both sets of my book covers.  I would not be able to do that on my own, because I know nothing of design. Thanks to Andy Tegethoff and Kit Lorelied for unbidden feedback and support, and actually reading what I wrote.  That also extends to Serina Braddock for contacting me out of the blue after reading Book 1 and offering support. 

             Once I realized I had a fun story that desperately need editing, I received the voluntary services of Janet Bucher and Missy Petschel, who edited my many typos and made my work more presentable.  It was on their own time and I can’t thank them enough. I have a newfound respect for editors.  But I still don’t want to be one.

             Very few people have read the Hank’s Guide series at this point.  I’m one of thousands of self-publishers on Amazon, trying to scrape together a following.  I appreciate anyone who has read or rated the books. I hope to find my people out there who are willing to take a chance on what I write.  I’m old enough to know that this is the thing I want to do. 

            

              Trivia

             I love me some Easter eggs.  I also try to throw in a few shout-outs to friends and fam when I can:

             Hank Lloyd is 100% named after Christopher Lloyd, aka Emmitt “Doc” Brown.

             The name Eve Elbsong wasn’t completely fabricated.  I have a friend named Eric Ellison who once put his signature on a sign-up sheet, and a piece of mail arrived days later addressed to “Eve Elbsong”.  He’s mentioned because when we were too young to understand astrophysics, we used the talk time travel and wonder how it worked. (Interesting note: MS Word tries to autocorrect “Elbsong” to “Ellison”.)

             Audrey Cruz was named after Aubrey Plaza, who I still think would play her in a movie version.

             Serina Babcock is named for the aforementioned Serina Braddock.  She’s family through my wife’s side, and once I told my wife about a glowing review I received from Serina, my wife insisted she make an appearance in Book 2.

             One of Taylor’s men was named Braxton, after one of the newest members of my wife’s family.

             At the end of Book 2, the trio crashes into an abandoned movie theater, recreating a scene from Back to the Future.

             The mercenary named Brady in Book 3 is named for Tom Brady, who beat my Seahawks in a Super Bowl.  I just wanted him to look stupid.

             The scene in Book 1 where Hank takes the travelers to the street he grew up on was lifted from a previous short story I wrote about time travel.

             Audrey’s assistant Cal was originally one of the travelers.  I had to cut him out because it got too confusing.

             I set a Frontiers facility in Palau.  I’ve never been, but I’ve met someone from there, which is probably one more than you have.

             Eve Elbsong created the NHE battery. My kids are named Nick, Holden, and Emily.

             There’s a lot of comic book stuff because I’ve only in the past few years began reading them. However, I’ve had a lifelong disdain for the types of nerds who like to ruin everything, and therefore, so did Hank.

             Since the release of the first book, NBC began a new time travel show called Timeless, which is mostly shitty. However, there are two items worth noting.  The main cast of travelers consist of one white guy, one white gal and one black guy, which is definitely something I noticed.  (Also, in Episode 6, they travel to the date of the erased Watergate tape, which is June 20, 1972.  That’s the day I was born. That has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was neat.)