"Sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

That was the saying that I always heard from my mother as I was growing up.  Nowadays, we are told that "words can hurt."

Uh, no.  Words have no power over you unless you let them.

For example, if some "enlightened" smug Prius-driving liberal calls me a global warming denier, I simply terminate any hopes of having a rational debate with him.  I'm through with the game of spending time defending my character.  It's easier to attack someone's character than their logic.  Hence the negativity of political ads.  The moment I stop to explain why I'm not a denier, the liberal has won:  He/she has moved the argument to their comfort zone-- They attack me, I defend myself.  Some think this is the way to "win' the argument.  It's not.  It's merely a way to stop it.  One of three things happens:

1. The smeared person switches to defense mode and the original discussion ceases.  Score 0-0, smear agent successfully covers up the holes in their argument with fresh coat of tar on the other's character.
2. The smeared person takes the high road and walks away.  Score 0-0
3. The smeared person gives the smear agent the knuckle sandwich he/she so richly deserves.  Score 0-0.

 So with this latest whining from Gays and Lesbians Against Accurate Depictions (GLAAD), I want to throw my support behind Vince Vaughn.  He's absolutely right when he says humor can bring us together.  GLAAD's over-reaction to a line in a movie is what pulls us apart and polarizes us.  Here's the line:

 Ladies and gentlemen, electric cars are gay.  Not homosexual gay.  But my-parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay.

As Al Capone (played by Robert DeNiro) said in The Untouchables:  "You know, we laugh not only because it's funny, but also because it's true."

And that's the ticket.  Electric cars are gay.  It takes a significant amount of manhood depression to drive something that reminds you that you need to pick up AA's from the store!  Masculinity, in it's purest form, is about men tapping into their primitive sides.  Men are on average physically stronger, larger, and more aggressive.  Don't blame me, blame biology.  Blame the testosterone flowing through me as I hammer out this screed.  Blame thousands of years of history.  The Amazons were the exception, not the rule.  Why is it any surprise that most men would shy away from being too civilized?  That's what an electric car represents:  That you care about your impact on the planet.

Screw that!  What men's names are familiar to us thousands of years after they lived and died? Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Attila the Hun.  Do we remember the men who sought to lessen their impact on the planet?  Will we remember Al Gore in a thousand years?  Or 500?  Or 250?  No, because the man is a hypocrite.  He wants his fellow men to act against their nature, to be more civilized, never mind that poor Al has gotten plenty of press for his own wasteful lifestyle.  If Caesar was apologetic for who he was, accounts of it have certainly not survived the test of time.  Had King Leonidas been more "civilized", he might have found a way to strike a deal with the Persian Empire and dramatically changed the face of civilization 2000 years later.

The promotion of the government-subsidized Chevy Volt demonstrates this affront to masculinity.  It's civilization telling us to stop hunting our food, to stop living how and where we want to live.  And when a movie line taps into our built-in response against being shackled by civilization, another group comes in and tries to shackle our speech and our minds.  GLAAD wants gays and lesbians to be accepted?  Fine, I accept them.  But stop your futile efforts to change the way I speak and think.  You'd have an easier time changing Earth's orbit around the Sun.