Ok, so I'm going to sort of piece this rant together from a conversation I had with Tricky. Therefore, it may sound a bit convoluted, and disjointed. But, I know you're smart enough to deal with that. But for the purpose of making myself sound smart, I will try to fix up everything I said in the chat, so you'll think I just pulled this out of my hat.

Tricky and I were talking about another friend who'd been acting rather offensively, which got me going as follows: I don't know what you think of this, but one thing that bothers me about living in this age and this society is the whole "truth is relative" thing. I don't believe that Truth, or Goodness or what is Right have ever been relative. I think they are absolute. What is relative is our perception of Truth, et al.
Don't worry, this isn't a really deep, meaningful philosophical diatribe; I'm not smart enough to do that. And I just realized I'm going to probably rant about a whole bunch of things. There are just so many many things about North American Society that annoy me hugely. Ok, now that I have that out of the way.. Then I got going on how much I hate it how people in our society are individualistic and narrow-minded. It's not like they're standing up for their beliefs, fighting for the freedom of their people or anything cool like that. Another thing that bugs me about our society is how everyone says you can do what you want, and if someone doesn't like it, they don't have to watch, listen, or read. But nobody says, "Look, why can't you just show some consideration for your friends. Think about other people for once."

I'm all for freedom of rights and everything, but now we've gone too far (IMHO) and everyone spazzes out everytime someone tells them to stop being so obnoxious and rude. I seriously doubt that your rights as a human being are being threatened. Ok, now I'm thinking of at least 2 or 3 people in particular who are going to say, "Yes, but...". Look, I know that you can go too far either way. If everyone agreed with me and our entire society started becoming more community minded, more considerate of other people's comfort, we could turn into a giant hive mind, and everyone would go along with the crowd. But we're in no danger of doing that anytime soon, so you (and I) need to stop being greedy little bastards, and look outside our own tiny fields of vision.
Ok, so I didn't rant about everything that I could've here. But there are lots and lots of things about North American society that offend me deeply, so I could do more than one rant on similar topics. But I promise nothing, as far as doing more posts at anytime in the near future, or doing posts with any kind of regularity.
Another thing - I know that some of you who know me well enough would probably call me an hypocrite, which is a fair accusation. But I'm a product of my society, and I'm continually combating my own selfish desires. And even if I'm guilty of many of the faults I see in the world around me, it certainly doesn't make my argument any less valid. I believe self-awareness is the first of many steps.