Another video post, with transcript.  This one was inspired by several rather ugly facebook groups with names like “I Live In America, I Shouldn’t Have To Press 1 For English,”  and perhaps even more so by the disappointing and rather scary prevalence of people who should know better going out and joining it, leaving me in a position of having to explain to my non-white, non-English-as-a-first-language friends why I, who make so much noise about bigotry and hate and how we should all choose love and get along and work together, have so many friends who are, at best, American provincialists with a poor understanding of the principles their country was founded on.

Sometimes one must take a stand that isn’t popular among one’s friends.  I hope that my friends take this criticism in the corrective and enlightening spirit that it is intended.

Transcript below.

There are a lot of things I "shouldn't have to" do. 

I shouldn't have to whore myself out to greedy incompetent buffoons to survive. 

I shouldn't have to use fossil fuels to get from one place to another. 

I shouldn't have to explain that Fox News is not "news" but "opinion." 

I shouldn't have to justify myself. 

I shouldn't have to tell people that I'm not an idiot.

I shouldn’t have to wonder whether the Gulf of Mexico is dead.

I shouldn’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

I shouldn’t be out of weed, and I shouldn’t be afraid to smoke it.

I shouldn’t be able to buy tobacco over the counter, and I shouldn’t be able to smoke it where people who don’t will have to smell it.

I shouldn’t have to wonder if I’ll ever manage to DO something with my life, or if I’ll end up some old bum pushing around a shopping cart with all my worldly possessions in it.

I shouldn’t have to be lonely.

I shouldn’t have to pay for my daughter’s birth by myself, but I do.  She’s 21 and I’m STILL paying that bill off.  (Note that I don’t blame her, or her mom for this – it’s a failure of Michigan law that has since been corrected…but not retroactively.)

I shouldn’t be afraid of being taken for a perv or a creeper when I see a single female walking in the rain or snow at night and offer her a free ride.

I shouldn’t be afraid people will think I’m a child molester when I see a child alone in public who is obviously not old enough to be left alone in public and I want to help him find his parents, or a policeman.

I shouldn’t have had to deal with my dad’s drinking when I was a kid, and I shouldn’t have had to deal with my mom’s mental health issues all my life.

I shouldn’t have to impress you.

And I shouldn’t have to explain to my friends, to people for whom I have the utmost respect, that of all the things in this world to be angry or frustrated about, “pressing “1” for English” should be about the bottom of the list, even though “this is America.”

I shouldn’t have to explain that “America” is not “the United States.”

I shouldn’t have to explain that the United States has never had an official language; nor that there’s a specific and honorable reason for that; nor that when an official language was being contemplated the lead contender was not English but German.

I shouldn’t have to explain that just because one illegal immigrant, or even a handful of them, commit violent crimes, this does not mean that all illegal immigrants are violent, or even particularly rude, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re all a threat to be profiled by the Arizona State Police at will.

I shouldn’t have to explain that we are all in this together, and the more we hate and tear each other down over stupid non-issues the harder it will be for us to love each other and move forward together toward a future of growth, cooperation, and innovation.

I shouldn’t have to bashfully explain to some of my friends that some of my other friends are bigots and even though I hate bigotry, I love my friends, and sometimes I’m at a loss to find a polite way to tell them they’re acting like stupid bigots and and not only embarrassing me in the process, but undermining everything I stand for and making me look like a hypocrite for associating with them.

Then again, I shouldn’t have to tell them.

They should already know.