“I never liked you. You know why? You don’t curse. I don’t trust a man who doesn’t curse. Not a “fuck” or a “shit” in all these years. Real men curse.” – Capt. Yardley
I admit, I have a bit of a problem with cursing. I manage to reign myself in most of the time, but there are certainly days when the expletives fly. I do my best on the rare occasions when I’m around kids… but hell, they’re going to have to grow up sometime. I used to worry about it until I read that researchers discovered that swearing is not only good for you, but a sign of higher intelligence. I figure with my R rated vocabulary I should be in Einstein or Sagan IQ range.
Maybe it’s getting older. Maybe it’s a diminishing tolerance for political correctness. Perhaps I’m just tired of morality lectures from scary nut-job politicians. Bottom line, the world is not going to end if an F-bomb drops from time to time. This country was built by hearty, rough and tumble folks. They were some bad ass risk takers crossing oceans, forging communities out of nothing, exploring the frontier to the west. If you don’t think these people used profanity, you don’t know history.
Needless to say, I’m pretty amused when Trump drops a well placed curse word. Watching the media reaction you’d think the sky was going to part and lightening was going to strike him down. Politicians just don’t do that. Little old evangelical ladies in Iowa must have been fainting in droves. Sigh… no I’m not a Trump supporter. He just provides endless entertainment. Besides, it’s fun to watch the talking heads be continually wrong about everything.
Trumps language reminds me of an incident back in another life when I worked for the evil empire (rhymes with shmikrosoft). We were in a conference room arguing about some product feature and the F-bombs were flying. A new, and very young, female engineer actually started crying and ran out. There was stunned silence for a moment and then a fairly senior engineer said, “Welcome to shmikrosoft and the fucking big kids table.” I was a little surprised at his lack of political correctness and don’t necessarily support the behavior – but it was pretty damn funny at the time.
My point? I’m not sure. My mind wanders these days. I do know you cannot rewrite history. We are not a nation of holier than thou, bible thumping, Ted Cruz puritans. Our founders were some rough folks. They were drinkers. The sons of liberty formed over taxation on sugar and the economic impact on our rum production. John Hancock was a smuggler on a level that put the Kennedy family to shame. Oh, you thought it was all about tea? The colonists boycotted tea only because they weren’t stupid enough to impact their alcohol production. The ‘shot heard round the world’ probably happened because the minutemen gathered in taverns to wait for the British. Nothing like a little Dutch courage to develop some beer muscles and feel invincible!
So the next time you feel the urge to swear, go ahead and let ‘er rip. You’ll feel smarter. And if it’ll make you feel better, take Homer Simpson’s example and get yourself a swear jar. You can donate the proceeds to Ben Carson’s campaign.
troutdog 