I’d rather have a bottle in front me than have to have a Hobby Lobby-otomy.

There are those who are constantly super-pissed about some political issue going on in this country. How do you do that? How do you keep up the energy to remain so mad, all the time? Is there some kind of Lazarus Pit of hate y’all draw from? Is there a purity to your depth of patriotism that I’m not privy to? Or do you just like to argue?

I’ve only been talking about this whole Hobby Lobby thing for a couple of days, and I’m over it. Exhausted. Done. I would much rather talk shitty movies and horror stories than get involved in gigantic slabs of political polemic.

Besides… no one seems to be mad about what I’m mad about, which makes it frustrating for me. There’s something more nefarious going on here than a woman’s right to behave as she sees fit sexually and whether or not an insurance company should be forced to pay for that. There’s something going on that affects everyone, regardless of gender or behavior.

They’re taking our language.

Every language has a certain degree of flexibility. It has to. The circle of speech has to widen to allow new things, street slang and faddish talk. It’s how we expand and learn. Unfortunately, it is also becoming how we lie more effectively, doubling up logic and negating common sense, coming up with semantic bullshit so strange that the mere mention of it would have mad us laugh hysterically fifteen years ago.

Corporations are people.

That’s legal. The Supreme Court passed a law that proclaims corporations are people. Not comprised of people, not made up of a great diversity of mankind, each bearing different skills, gifts and ideas, but actual people. I’m waiting for the day when they all start choosing first names.

“Hello! My name is AT&T, but you can call me ‘Janet.'”

We know corporations are not people. That’s silly. But the language has been turned against us, and now something that is patently not true is, in fact, a law.

This is simply another example of newspeak, governmental gobbledy-gook designed to confuse the average American and hoodwink the rest. Remember when they declared ketchup to be a vegetable? That was amazing. Red sugar paste with some tomato juice in it, and it counts as a vegetable in school lunches. No one seems to care about this, nor does anyone bring up the interesting fact that tomatoes are a fruit. if anything, ketchup is jelly. It’s ridiculous, and it’s a form of reality, even though your common sense tells you it is absolutely not true. You can’t grow ketchup. It’s not a vegetable.

Now that corporations are people, they get to have opinions about things that people have opinions about. Let’s say you work for a giant multi-national corporation named Larry. Larry doesn’t approve of drinking, football or gay people. Larry isn’t fun at parties, either. Because Larry doesn’t approve of these things, he can make sure that you, as his employee, have noting to do with them either. No more football pools at work. No more three martini lunches. And certainly no making out with anybody who has the same kind of genitalia you do. Sorry, queer football winos, you’ve got to find somewhere else to work because Larry doesn’t like you.

Larry doesn’t like The Gays. Janet thinks girls who have sex outside of marriage are sluts. Marcus just can’t trust anyone wearing a burqa.

Now, things like advances in civil rights don’t matter to Larry, Janet or Marcus. And it doesn’t matter if the gay man happens to be the finest member of your accounting team. It also doesn’t matter that one of your HR reps has been wearing the same dress for three days straight, but manages to file more than three other people who manage to make it home every night. And the Islamic people may have a 99% retention rate, but that whole face covering thing is just nerve-wracking, isn’t it?

Corporations are people, and people only like the people they like. So if Larry the Corporation doesn’t like you, he doesn’t have to hire you. And if you’re already on board, he doesn’t have to pay for certain parts of your insurance. He doesn’t have to take care of you like he does the people he likes.

And that’s because equality actually means “favoritism.”

People are throwing a lot of shade on Christians for this kind of activity, and judging from news stories, they seem to be the ones doing the most kvetching about people who aren’t like them. They don’t smoke and they don’t screw and they don’t mix with those what do. Old straight white guys with small penises and control issues seem to really enjoy this stuff. It makes them feel better about themselves. It’s like putting plastic testicles on the back of your truck.

But we all do it. Everyone of us. We all spin things to our liking. We’re great at justifying. Am I a worthless drunk or a high-functioning alcoholic? Am I obese, or are you body-shaming me? Am I a rude jerk, or are you overly sensitive?

I don’t have answers. And I suppose I’m just rambling now.

All I know is we’re rapidly getting to the point where 2 + 2 = 5 and we’ve always been at war with Eastasia. It scares me.

What are words for, anyway?