Skip to main content

A Lament for the Frito Bandito


I am fed up with political correctness. It has never been a good thing and it never will be a good thing. I want to shake people who are willing to throw away the hard won freedoms we have in the United States because they think that they have a right to go through life without being offended. I have news for you. Going through life without being offended isn't one of your inalienable rights. For that matter your happiness isn't an inalienable right, the pursuit of happiness is. There is a difference. People died to give you the freedom to be different from me. The whole point was to get away from intolerance and you're trying to breed it back in! Diversity tolerance does not equate with the right to go through your life unoffended.

I have been building up to this rant since I was a kid and the Frito-Lay company took the Frito Bandito away. Why? Because some Chicano or LaRaza political activists thought that the character had a negative social impact for Latinos and Hispanics. I have news for the political activists. I was totally willing to go without table grapes and lettuce to support your seemingly more legitimate causes. Your idiotic decision to get San Francisco television and radio stations to boycott the Frito Bandito was just that, idiotic. Sure, it was effective. You got rid of him- but then I associated the inability to think clearly with you. The causes you told me were important became suspect. Nice trade off. I never associated the Bandito with the Hispanic community any more than my friends associated my Italian heritage with the guy who was in the Alka Seltzer commercials saying "At'sa spicey meat-a-ball!"

Here's the thing that scares me; we (our society) haven't stopped trying to eliminate being offended ever since. Instead of teaching our kids to value human beings because of their humanity and thus to appreciate the differences between our various ethnicities, we have widened the chasm between us. We're not fixing the real problem; we're trying to legislate opinions instead. It's ludicrous.

Romans 12:1-2
1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual service of worship.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
(NAS)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Character Flaws, Sin and Remediation

I have been thinking about my last post in which I offered to talk about how having a job has shown or magnified my character flaws. Before I do though, I want to distinguish between character flaws and sin. My character flaws predispose me to sin in certain areas more readily than in others. Indulging in my character flaws is sinful. Entertaining the idea of indulging my character flaws is sinful. They are the weaknesses in me where my flesh makes itself known by screaming, "You know you want to!!" Too often I hear Christians lamenting that they "make mistakes" or are victims of their genetic make-up and intimate that they should, therefore, be excused from culpability for being prone to certain activities. Our cultural dependence on a medical model to define our behavior has given many what they see as a plausible excuse for sin. I don't see that caveat in the Word. For Christians, the Word is always our standard. It is the standard by which all will be j
7 comments
Read more

Fear Down, Hope and Peace to Go!

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is
1 comment
Read more

Super Church a song for the Emergent-sy

In the early 70s I was in a youth choir at my church. Our youth pastor was a musician and his way of connecting with us as a group was through the choir and music. Somehow there was an affiliation between him and The Continental Singers, New Hope and Jeremiah People. He was worked with Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus too, I think. Are any of these names familiar to you? Though I remember the church fondly I was a profoundly lost and troubled young woman during my years there. That and time have muddled the memories quite a bit. Today I was digging through some old paperwork and one of the books to the musical we did. It's Getting Late For the Great Planet Earth, a folk rock oratorio by Cam Floria. Yes, that's right. Cam Floria put Hal Lindsey to music. There's a lot to laugh about and some to groan about but as I was looking through the songs and remembering, I found this little ditty and I only wish I could sing it for you. Just remember that this is circa 1972 and even th
8 comments
Read more