Thinking back to my elementary school days, I remember how cruel children are to each other. Constant name calling and bickering which sometimes resulted in mild hazing, were commonplace. The instigators were usually referred to as "bullies."? These bullies had two basic kinds of assault, verbal, and physical. How were the victimized children taught to respond you ask? Physical assaults were commonly dealt with by the adults in one form or another. The verbal assaults were usually shrugged off and the children were told "Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you."? I remember this was usually the generic comeback to any insult, and was so widely used that it was extremely annoying.

There is however a message within that tired old saying that we have either forgotten, or failed to perpetuate to the rest of the world's population. That message is simple, ideas cannot hurt you. The vehicle of these ideas whether they be verbal, written, picture, or video are intangible and cannot hurt you unless you let them.

Now let me pose the question to the world. What the fuck happened? Instead of telling children to toughen up, parents will now sue the instigating party. There are cases of parents suing schools over 7 year old kids "sexually harassing"? each other. Something is definitely wrong here. If we keep treating kids like this they are going to be a hundred times worse than the current generation of parents with their kids. While on the subject of parents over-sheltering their kids this article is a prime example of how overly sensitive douchebags are going to censor and/or sue the rest of us to death if given the chance.

Muslims are another (more extreme) example of how out of touch people are with the concept of hurt feelings vs. ACTUALLY being hurt. All it takes to get them riled up to a riot-frenzy these days is a poorly sketched drawing of Mohamed. If this image hurt them, Allah save us all if they ever find goatse pictures (look it up on your own time, but take my word that its probably the grossest thing you can possibly see aside from mutilated corpses). (Note: Don't think I'm just ripping on Muslims here, Catholics get their undergarments ruffled whenever someone badmouths their precious Mary, and Christians in general get upset over almost everything.)

Pictures of naked people, depictions of sexual acts, rude language, simulated violence, or any groupings of words or pictures for that matter can do you no harm. If you choose not to be exposed to these things, good for you. Turn on your V-chip, home school your children, use the parental controls available for ANYTHING electronic these days, live in a sensory deprivation chamber for all I care, and leave those of us who choose to be exposed to whatever we want alone.

Basically what I'm getting at is that ideas don't cause pain, you cause yourself pain by being offended. You also choose what you are and are not offended by, and last time I checked you can choose what you expose yourself to for the most part. You can live in your censored, filtered, watered down, padded world, and we can still have our controversial, spicy world to indulge our need for the unfiltered flow of ideas.

Below I've created a handy reference guide for those that get easily offended, I hope it can help some of you out.

Offended by the TV?

Turn off the damned thing, or change the channel.

Offended by a newspaper drawing?

Don't subscribe to it.

Offended by internet porn?

Step away from the computer.

Sex and violence in video games getting you down?

Nobody forced you to play them.

This rant offends you?

You chose to read it.

I've just been offended by an image or grouping of words, what do I do now?

The human brain is an amazing thing. It has the capacity to forget things or cope with them. Keep in mind that not only does the brain control you, but you control it.